Kerry Godliman

Kerry Godliman interview

Kerry Godliman plays Hannah, a care home manager, in a six-part comedy drama. The show, which had a pilot episode last year, has caused some debate because it features comedian Ricky Gervais as Derek, an employee who seems to have learning difficulties. Kerry tells TV Choice more...

Ricky Gervais in Derek, Channel 4 - review

Despite good performances from Kerry Godliman and Karl Pilkington, the first full series of this care home comedy looks like another slushy mess, says Jack Seale.

A theme runs through the stand-up tonight. All three comics riff on the way people overreact to trivial things. For excellent Kerry Godliman, that means women who think they've lost their purse; for host Rhod Gilbert it's an altercation with the "travelling chef" in a train's buffet car about an egg and cress sandwich. Final act Jon Richardson serves up lovely micro-observations of his slobby housemates and their washing up: "You're doing a baking tray when there's still wine glasses!" he wails, and we feel his pain.

Frazzled Welshman Rhod Gilbert is our energetic host tonight, bringing us another slice of stand-up from the Hammersmith Apollo. Both Gilbert and guest Jon Richardson poke fun at their comic personas. Gilbert takes us through his anger management journal ("sort of a cross between Bridget Jones's Diary and Mel Gibson's"). Richardson makes light of his OCD, moaning about his messy flatmates ("adults who eat cereal at night-time"). Sandwiched between the boys comes likeable Kerry Godliman taking a pop at wedding proposals and bridezillas.

Arguably the most successful stand-up show on British TV has returned for its eighth series on BBC One, and not much has changed.

This opening episode featured Dara O'Briain as the headline act, mostly talking about stupid things people do in their holidays, including his own experience at trying to surf in Australia. Guest Danny Bhoy also talked a lot about Australia, as well as the problems Scotland might have if they get into the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. However, the best act on the night for me was ventriloquist Nina Conti, who did a brilliant improvisation act which involved getting two members of the audience on stage and making them wear fake mouths which she controlled, turning the pair into life-sized dummies.

Live at the Apollo demonstrates some of the great comic talents that are out there, but once again the show still has the problems. Firstly is the length of the show. It used to be 45 minutes, now it's 30 minutes. Admittedly there are extended repeats, but for the last series they didn't appear until months later. Personally I think they should scrap the 30 minute format and just have the straight 45 minutes.

The other, bigger complaint Live at the Apollo gets is the lack of diversity among the comics chosen. The main one is the lack of women. Other than Conti the only other women appearing are Kerry Godliman and Sara Pascoe. Now given that Conti, who is both a woman and the first ventriloquist to appear on the programme, was the funniest person on in the latest episode, I think that's proof that a bigger range of performers could do wonders for it...

BBC Radio 4 has just started a new season of comedy pilots, and Stop/Start is the first on offer.

It's written by and stars Jack Docherty, who is perhaps most famous for being part of the team behind the 1980s-90s Channel 4 sketch show Absolutely (referred to by some as the Celtic Monty Python). Stop/Start revolves around three couples, of which Docherty forms one half as Barney Ferguson, with Kerry Godliman playing his wife Cathy.

The main characteristic of Stop/Start is that the entire cast keep stopping the flow of the show in order to explain their point-of-view to the audience, so we get to know what they're really thinking.

Some readers will probably be thinking that they've come across this sort of thing before, namely in Peep Show, in which you're able to hear a character's internal monologue. However, this is different. Here, the characters know that you can hear them and therefore try to persuade you to side with their argument.

The show's quite comparable to some of Docherty's early sketches on Absolutely, which featured him talking to someone he wanted to avoid, then talking to the camera to explain his true feelings. A tried and tested formula, then. The audience reaction is great, too, especially when they boo some of the asides, like when one character admits to reading someone's diary.

There's no doubt that Stop/Start could go on to produce a full series, and I hope Radio 4 does so.

It's hard to imagine this one would have got commissioned without the involvement of Ricky Gervais.

He writes, directs and stars in this one-off comedy drama about a simple soul called Derek who works in an old people's home.

His mate Karl Pilkington is in it too (as Dougie), in what is easily the worst hairpiece in TV history.

There are occasional smiles, but this doesn't have the savagery of Getting On, the BBC comedy on how we treat the elderly.

This is a much more sincere, poignant little piece and although Derek and his co-worker Hannah (Kerry Godliman) love their jobs, the fact remains that most people have a horror of ending up in a place like this - even if it is only on the telly.

Ricky Gervais follows up Life's Too Short with a show about a simple, vulnerable man working in an old people's home. Brave, but this isn't the moment where Gervais is consumed by political incorrectness once and for all: Derek is nearly a brilliant reinvention.

You'd have to try hard to read Gervais's portrayal of slow, sweet Derek as mockery, and the sad ending is up there with David Brent's "Don't make me redundant" meltdown. Kerry Godliman shines in a supporting role as Hannah, the care worker who is Derek's best friend and is thwarted, selfless, burningly sad but endlessly compassionate - every moment she is on screen is sigh-inducing magic.

But Derek falters because Gervais, who writes and directs without Stephen Merchant, is too reliant on tropes from his previous work. The action is shot as a documentary about the characters, a device that doesn't add much and highlights the occasional, inappropriate similarity between Derek and Gervais's other creations. Casting Karl Pilkington as another of Derek's colleagues also breaks the spell, and sometimes the mix of slapstick and sensitive drama is uncomfortable.

This is a Ricky Gervais programme for people who don't like Ricky Gervais. Derek Noakes (played by Gervais) is a retirement home worker with learning disabilities. He sports greasy hair and bad cardigans, but he always puts others first and is kind to the old people he looks after. He also loves Rolf Harris and Deal or No Deal.

So far so predictable: Gervais has seemingly picked another vulnerable target to poke fun at, while no doubt purporting to break down taboos. But remarkably this is not the case. Gervais is not making fun of Derek, or anyone, it seems - he's celebrating him, and the other outsiders who work in the home (including Karl Pilkington in his debut acting role as Dougie the caretaker, and Kerry Godliman who plays Derek's best friend Hannah). It's a genuinely fond and amusing script. When one of the old people at the home dies, Derek remembers the lady once telling him: "It's more important to be kind than clever or good-looking." "I'm not clever or good-looking... but I am kind," Derek says, holding back the tears. Gervais is apparently hoping this pilot episode will be commissioned for a full series but Channel 4 has billed it as a one-off comedy drama. They'd be fools to let it go.

Review: Ricky Gervais in Derek

Where Kerry Godliman and Ricky Gervais turn in naturalistic performances, wringing humour from their characters' behaviour, Karl Pilkington is there in a comedy wig, being Karl Pilkington. It doesn't quite gel.