British Comedy Guide
Ricky Gervais
Ricky Gervais

Ricky Gervais

  • 63 years old
  • English
  • Actor, writer, director, executive producer and stand-up comedian

Press clippings Page 47

Ricky Gervais interview

'He's this 6ft 3ins Adonis and little fat Ricky beat him in tennis!': Special Correspondents star Gervais talks about working with Eric Bana and the return of David Brent.

Daily Mail, 25th May 2016

Very early on in Upstart Crow, a collaborative Ben Elton-William Shakespeare vehicle for the hopelessly thick and untalented David Mitchell, a member of the studio audience reacted to Liza Tarbuck just saying something in an accent, with her titty-dumplings to the fore with the kind of prolonged loud screeching fit that you or I could only hope to achieve while dousing our genitals in hydrochloric acid. My heart sank. But soon it actually began to get funny, sometimes very. The audience member had obviously been led out by an intern with the promise of a cup of tea and perhaps, actually it's to be hoped, a reassuring whisper of "you're not clever enough for this, dear". By the end, this mashup of Will's artistic frustrations in an England seething with stupidity, and as relevant to today as to 1584, had become a delight, to the extent the audience was anticipating the gags. Of a fiendishly cunning plot to frustrate young love, in which it had become necessary to procure a play-dead potion, Mitchell's brimming "I can't see how it can possibly go wrong" had much of the hubristic glee in seeing it coming of a Mainwaring, a Hancock.

Inevitable parallels - there was much God's bodikins! and gut-porridge stuff - will be drawn with Blackadder, although perhaps someone could tell me why that's in any conceivable way a bad thing. But Mr Elton has (almost) wholly redeemed himself for crimes against David Haig in the relentlessly smile-free elf'n'safety trudge that was 2013's The Wright Way, and it's nice to see he's got his brain back. And I do like Spencer Jones as Kempe, played as Ricky Gervais as David Brent - way too knowingly see-what-I-did-there, but that's how Ben rolls.

Euan Ferguson, The Guardian, 15th May 2016

Ben Elton's Upstart Crow seems stuck in the 1980s, or 1970s, with its embarrassing canned laughter (if it's actually a studio audience, then it deserves to be confined to a can) and eagerness to please.

David Mitchell portrays a more modern William Shakespeare, who is struggling to make a name for himself - not helped by an uncaring world, and family. The Ricky Gervais mickey take character (Kempe - Spencer Jones) is faintly amusing, but Elton crams in far too many words - many of them, sadly, pathetically juvenile.

Paddy Shennan, Liverpool Echo, 13th May 2016

Could Ricky Gervais bring back Extras?

Could Ricky Gervais bring back Extras after David Brent's big screen return? Speaking to Digital Spy at the BAFTA TV Awards, Ashley Jensen revealed that she wouldn't need much persuading if Extras was to return in some form.

Digital Spy, 9th May 2016

Ricky Gervais to release a David Brent single

Ricky Gervais is aiming to hit the charts as well as the box office when The Office film follow-up Life on the Road is released this summer.

Radio Times, 6th May 2016

Ricky Gervais shares first scathing Office review

The comedian shared a link to the review, penned by critic and producer Victor Lewis-Smith, back when the series debuted in 2001.

Caroline Westbrook, Metro, 4th May 2016

New Ben Elton comedy takes a pop at Ricky Gervais

"Affectionate" lampooning has the Bard's cocky actor colleague speaking exactly like The Office star.

Ben Dowell, Radio Times, 3rd May 2016

Watch Ricky Gervais 'storm out' of interview

The ITV presenter Lorraine Kelly admitted afterwards that the hiccup was her fault.

Nicola Agius, The Mirror, 25th April 2016

Ricky Gervais: 'Bowie kept illness from everyone'

Ricky Gervais has revealed he was exchanging emails with David Bowie two weeks before his death but that Bowie kept the state of his health a secret.

Colin Paterson, BBC News, 25th April 2016

How comedy became a language of democratic politics

Like all forms of resistance, comedy can both shore up and legitimate existing political structures, yet it can also, in certain moments, work to encourage revision. Here, James Brassett looks specifically at the critical nature of radical British comedy by the likes of Russell Brand, Charlie Brooker, and Stewart Lee and writes that it raises questions about the nature of resistance and reveals the deeply political nature of the British public.

James Brassett, Democratic Audit UK, 18th April 2016

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