Ricky Gervais

My favourite TV show: The Office

For those of us who were teenagers when Ricky Gervais' sitcom arrived, The Office was more than just a great comedy - David Brent and his colleagues formed the basis for the way we relate to each other.

With The Graham Norton Show not due back on our screens until next month, here's a chance for Alan Carr to gain a ratings foothold in the Great Friday Night Chatshow Wars. The lineup for this returning episode of Chatty Man - Ricky Gervais and Gary Barlow - is a little underwhelming, but at least Gervais is bringing Muppets Most Wanted co-stars Kermit The Frog and his identical nemesis Constantine along for some felt fun. Barlow's contribution sounds less enticing: a performance of his new soft-rock single, Since I Saw You Last.

Nipping in a week ahead of his big Friday night rival Graham Norton, Alan Carr (left) kicks off a new series of lippy chat and louche one-liners by inviting Ricky Gervais and Jessica Hynes to lock comedy horns. Those two can give as good as they get, so it could be a riot. Calming things down will be Gary Barlow, continuing on his highly successful solo comeback with new single Since I Saw You Last.

Ricky Gervais: 'Muppets inspired my comedy career'

"The Muppets were very important part of my childhood," reminisces Ricky Gervais.

Ricky Gervais: I want to do more Derek

The writer and star of the Channel 4 comedy reveals he will do "a special, at least" to follow the second series set to air from 23 April.

Ricky Gervais: Female characters often treated as props

The creator of Derek says Hollywood portrays women as air heads or so ambitious they "need to be taught a lesson".

The Robin Ince three minute interview

Stand-Up comic Robin Ince isn't a name dropper. So Martin Walker will do some for him. In a 25 year long career he's worked with the likes of Chris Addison, Richard Dawkins, Ricky Gervais, Stewart Lee, Josie Long, Natalie Haynes, and (gulp) Brian Cox. He's currently touring his show, Robin Ince: In and Out of His mind.

Ricky Gervais changed the way we look at our working lives with his lampooning of crap desk jobs on crap British light industrial estates in The Office. The cod-documentary W1A, John Morton's follow-up to his Olympic satire Twenty Twelve, takes an updated potshot at management and the workplace, this time in the consultant-speak era of 2014, and against the backdrop of the BBC's New Broadcasting House.

This is an environment where high-vis-wearing executives are forever carrying Brompton folding bikes round open-plan offices, chairing pointless meetings of the Way Ahead Task Force or the Senior Damage Limitation Group in glass "informal spaces" before attending one of the regular "digital handshake" sessions for staff. Even as parliament debates whether to decriminalise non-payment of the licence fee, the self-lampooning W1A demonstrates that the BBC has a very British ability to laugh at itself.

Review: GQ Extravaganza, Hammersmith Apollo

GQ has a long-standing reputation for being a stylish fashion magazine, but it is also building up a reputation for stylish comedy. Thanks to the contacts book and charm of its comedy editor, stand-up James Mullinger, it has put together a number of striking special editions featuring the world's greatest clowns and comedy actors from Jerry Seinfeld to Paul Rudd and Ricky Gervais. This year they went one stage further with a formidable comedy gig, which worked absolutely brilliantly. Until the headline act came on...