The letters from "me Mammy," the dinner jacket and the wellington boots marked L and R but worn on the wrong feet made Jimmy Cricket unmistakable before he reached the punchline. Cricket, the Northern Irish comedian whose gentle act carried him from holiday camps to ITV and BBC radio, died on August 3, 2026, at 80, his family said in a statement reported by The Irish News.

He was born James Joseph Mulgrew in Cookstown, County Tyrone, on October 17, 1945. His family moved to Belfast when he was two, first to Ardoyne and later to the west of the city. He left school at 16 and worked in a betting shop before entertainment became his profession.

At 20 he became a Redcoat at Butlin's in Mosney, County Meath, for the summer of 1966, followed by two summers in Clacton. By 1972 he was a Pontins Bluecoat in Southport and Morecambe while sharpening his delivery in northern clubs. His first professional contract came in 1973, supporting the Grumbleweeds.

His familiar stage details grew from practical choices. The phrase "Come here, there's more" began as a way to reclaim the attention of club audiences chatting around their tables. Sunderland comedian Bobby Thompson encouraged distinctive stage clothes, and Cricket answered with boots marked for the opposite feet. A shoemaker added hard soles so he could slide more quickly during his eccentric dancing. As Cricket explained in a 2023 Irish News interview, the catchphrase was there to hold the room.

Television widened that room. The BBC Northern Ireland archive recorded that he reached the second grand final of LWT's Search for a Star in 1981. Four years later, Central Television put him at the centre of And There's More, an ITV sketch show that ran for four series from 1985 to 1988. Its stand-up, songs and sketches carried his club persona into family living rooms, and the programme included Rory Bremner's first television appearance.

Cricket became the subject of This Is Your Life, appeared in Royal Variety performances and kept returning to pantomime. At Belfast's Grand Opera House, he appeared in Cinderella, Robinson Crusoe and Jack and the Beanstalk across the late 1980s and early 1990s. Jimmy's Cricket Team gave the act a radio home for five BBC series, with scripts by Eddie Braben and performances by Bill Pertwee, Peter Goodwright and Noreen Kershaw.

Television success did not pull him away from live entertainment. Monthly appearances at Blackpool's Lyndene Hotel, theatre dates and charity shows kept him close to an audience. His comedy stayed clean and welcoming as fashions changed, guided by his stated aim to entertain without embarrassing anyone in the room.

Pope Francis named him a Knight of the Order of St Gregory the Great in 2015, and Cricket was invested at St Patrick's Church in Rochdale in January 2016. His official family statement tied the honour to years of charitable work that brought people laughter.

He met May while working at Pontins in 1972, and their marriage lasted 52 years. They raised four children, and his family described him as their champion, a very silly grandfather and "a force for joy." In 2023 he gathered the route from Redcoat to television headliner in Memoirs Of An Irish Comedian, an autobiography covering 50 years in show business.

Cricket's work remains in four television series, recordings of Jimmy's Cricket Team, his memoir, pantomime memories and routines that audiences could identify from a hat or a pair of boots. Those reversed wellingtons still contain the craft: a visual joke refined for movement, built in the clubs and offered with an invitation to come closer.