British comics Jimmy Carr and Sarah Millican get ready to show Minneapolis their naughty parts

Anyone who thinks British humor is limited to withering quips on “Downton Abbey” is living in the past.

Jimmy Carr and Sarah Millican, both performing sold-out shows this month in Minneapolis, are stellar examples of stand-up comics from the United Kingdom who are bawdier, edgier and more politically incorrect than most of their American counterparts.

This isn’t new, especially in the world of television, the medium that helped make Carr and Millican stars in their native land.

Because broadcasters like the BBC are largely controlled by state funding, shows are less susceptible to threats from the kinds of advertisers and advocacy groups that have gone after Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel.

That’s allowed for some groundbreaking “telly.”

Norman Lear may have revolutionized American airwaves in 1971 with the debut of “All in the Family,” but it was based on the BBC’s “Till Death Do Us Part,” in which the lead character was much more volatile than Archie Bunker.

The 1970s masterpiece “Fawlty Towers” had John Cleese’s hotel manager beating an employee with kitchen utensils and goose-stepping across the lobby like Adolf Hitler. Compare that sitcom’s outrageous tone with that of “Newhart,” the 1980s CBS series in which Bob Newhart’s innkeeper rarely raised his voice.

“We had to make Michael Scott a slighter nicer guy, with a rosier outlook to life,” Gervais wrote for Time magazine in 2011, the year after his first gig as Golden Globes host irritated half of Hollywood. “He could still be childish and insecure, and even a bore, but he couldn’t be too mean.”

Carr, who started his professional stand-up career about the same time “The Office” debuted in England, may have surpassed Gervais as Britain’s most controversial export.

Carr, who is at the Pantages Theatre on Friday, dresses on stage like he’s going to a Noel Coward cocktail party, but his material seems to come straight out of a construction site.

“People say you can’t joke about things these days,” he said at the start of his 2024 Netflix special, “Natural Born Killer.” “Watch me now.”

His subsequent act is littered with jokes about pedophilia, spousal abuse, transgender people, immigrants and incest, rapidly switching from one taboo topic to the next without transitions.

“She’s brainier than Kurt Cobain’s garage ceiling,” he said. “Too soon? He was always shooting his mouth off.”

That kind of humor can be a hard sell in the United States, the same way a lot of American programming seems too tepid for Brits.

The English novelist Christopher Fowler, best known for the Bryant & May mysteries, addressed this cultural divide on his website in 2018.

“While the cleverest American humour is hugely admired here, most mainstream comedy is overlooked not because it’s culturally alien but because it’s too wholesome even when it’s being dark,” wrote Fowler, who died in 2023. “I liked ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ but it remained cultish and barely seen in this country and I loved ‘Veep,’ but realised it came from a UK writer.”

Carr routinely gives his audiences a chance to strike back, offering a period where fans can share put-downs of his own. When they are directed squarely at him, he responds with a high-pitch string of giggles that sounds like he’s auditioning for a Bee Gees cover band.

While she’s gotten softer and cuddlier in the second half of her 20-year stand-up career, her act still revolves around self-deprecation.

A good chunk of her jokes are about her weight. Apparently, she didn’t get the memo about no more body-shaming.

“I stopped buying women’s magazines,” she said in one of her specials that you can watch for free on YouTube. “The only time I ever see someone who looks like me is under the word ‘before,’“ she said.

Onstage, Millican dresses like a PTA mum and speaks with perfect enunciation. That makes it all the more shocking when she starts dropping dirty words and diving into detail about her “lady parts.” It’s like discovering Mary Poppins on OnlyFans.

Those craving some non-woke comedy are encouraged to check out both Carr and Millican onstage. But even the most thick-skinned fan may want to brace themselves with something stronger than a cup of tea.

Where: Pantages Theatre, 710 Hennepin Av., Mpls.

Tickets: Sold out, $86 and up on resale sites, hennepinarts.org

When: 8 p.m. Oct. 16 and Oct. 21

Where: Orpheum Theatre, 910 Hennepin Av., Mpls.