Ricky Gervais

'I owe Extras everything' - Ashley Jensen

Ashley Jensen has come far thanks to Ricky Gervais's sitcom. She talks about giving up her glamorous role in Ugly Betty for a series that's just been cancelled.

Chris Rock: 'I envy Ricky Gervais'

Chris Rock has admitted that he is jealous of Ricky Gervais.

Ricky Gervais sparks outrage after Down's insult

Comic Ricky Gervais has sparked fury after claiming that Susan Boyle looks like a "mong".

Jonathan Ross's final guests: who would you choose?

Which stars should grace Wossy's farewell sofa? Russell Brand, perhaps - or just anyone but Ricky Gervais.

Ricky Gervais bigs up his new sitcom, Life's Too Short

"Warwick Davis is playing a twisted version of himself", explained the comedian. "He's quite conceited and arrogant and manipulative. And he runs a small person talent agency, which he does in real life. Me and Steve Merchant pop up as ourselves, just to add some realism."

Review: The Ricky Gervais Show - Is he having a laugh?

The worst thing about the series is that it didn't really need to happen in the first place. The podcasts were brilliant as they were so, if you did find yourself chuckling, treat yourself to the podcasts and let your imagination do the rest.. I gaurntee it'll look better than the slapdash animation here.

So out-there are the musings of Karl Pilkington - friend of Ricky Gervais - that his thoughts cannot be constrained in a single TV show. Picking up where he left off last week, tonight's TV version of the popular Merchant/Gervais/Pilkington podcasts begins with his increasingly bizarre thoughts on age and ageing ("At 78, they get injected in the temple, but it's OK..."). The 1950s-style cartoons bring additional comedy to an already deranged exchange.

Ricky Gervais to host next year's Golden Globes

Ricky Gervais will return as the host for next year's film awards ceremony after fronting the show this January.

"Karl! You are living in a cartoon world!" shrieked Ricky Gervais, in the very first of the podcasts he recorded with Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington. They all are now, HBO having taken the original recordings and added Hanna-Barbera-ish visuals to what they introduce, in a portentously grand American voice, as "a series of pointless conversations". Gervais looks like a knock-off Fred Flintstone and Stephen Merchant like some amiable gump out of a Seventies road-safety film, while Pilkington is just a baffled pink golf ball. If you missed the originals, Pilkington is the point of thing - his stupefied take on the world the catalyst for Merchant and Gervais's flights of fantasy (and delighted incredulity). "I've seen him blossom from an idiot into an imbecile," said Gervais fondly as they started out, though half the fun of it is that in between absurdities, Pilkington will occasionally stumble on an undeniable truth: "If you haven't bungee-jumped by the time you're 78," he pointed out flatly, "you're not going to do it."

The animation has allowed HBO to fill out the more florid phrases, so when Gervais reacted to a particularly groggy aperçu from Pilkington by saying "he sounds like he was found in a glacier and thawed out", you get a little sequence showing the defrosting. This quite often adds to the comedy of the original. But there are times when you sense a loss too, particularly in the yelping reactions that follow some particularly dopey remark from Pilkington. On the ear, these eruptions of hilarity were very infectious, and the deliberate simplicity of the animation occasionally seems to mask the expressiveness of the voice, rather than match it. It is still funny, though, not to mention a very canny bit of recycling.

Have a laugh on Ricky Gervais

Gervais laughing is the sound of the largest, smuggest gas leak in history.