Ricky Gervais

Review: David Brent's guitar tutorial

For a character as soaked in pathos as David Brent, only the most depressing of hobbies would have been fitting for the Slough middle-manager 10 years down the road, and fortunately Ricky Gervais found it in the world of the YouTube guitar tutorial.

A biography of idiocy - how the show came about

The Ricky Gervais Show Series 3 was released on DVD this week. To celebrate this final chapter I thought I'd tell the lovely readers of The Huffington Post the story of how we got here.

Ricky Gervais's GQ Interview

Ricky Gervais is well aware that he sometimes annoys people even when he doesn't mean to.

I had managed to resist the allure of The Wright Way up until this week. If you watched the Ricky Gervais sitcom Extras, you would understand what I mean when I say that The Wright Way is a real world When The Whistle Blows. It is completely, and I mean completely, unredeemable in every conceivable way.

I know that Ben Elton is an easy and popular target nowadays, but let's face it; if this is what he is producing then he kind of deserves it. Perhaps ironically, The Wright Way does everything wrong that it possibly could. The writing is just horrible. Horrible to the point I was physically wincing every couple of minutes. There was even some 'yoot speak' in there this week. Every joke (and I use the term very loosely) was signposted from eight miles off, and almost exclusively unfunny.

The characters are neither believable nor wacky enough to be anything of interest, and the lines are delivered in an off-putting pantomime-style shout which makes the performances stilted to the point of being almost unwatchable.

I spoke last week about not really getting the 'live audience' set up, but that doesn't always mean the death of a show. However, the laughter track on this only highlighted more the complete absence of my laughter. I like to think that I go into things with an open mind, happy to have my predictions shattered, but watching a second episode of this would be tantamount to emotional self immolation.

If you have any love in your heart for the Elton of old, the one who brought us Blackadder and The Young Ones, then I implore you: do not watch this show. Also burn any copies of the Radio Times which list it. And your TiVo box, in case it accidentally records it.

Interview: Ricky Gervais

Hit Office character David Brent to return for special Youtube shows as comic reveals why he is axing The Ricky Gervais Show.

And I'm afraid I wasn't too impressed with another new sitcom, The Job Lot, which came on straight after Vicious. It had the air of The Office about it, following the lives of those working at a job centre in the West Midlands. But it was nowhere near as good as Ricky Gervais' classic series.

The show was about work - or the lack of it - and the characters in the office and their relationships - or lack of them - and, though it started with the Morecambe & Wise song Bring Me Sunshine, it did anything but. It left me as disillusioned as the employers.

In fairness, the performers were likeable enough, such as Miranda's Sarah Hadland's turn as neurotic Trish, and Russell Tovey as Karl, the frazzled manager.

The one shining light in an otherwise average sitcom was Jo Enright, brilliantly irritating as Angela, an unsmiling jobsworth and borderline psychopath.

Sadly, two vital ingredients were missing from the half hour show - laughs and the plots, both of which are pretty important when it comes to making good TV. Add to that the annoying background music and I've got another reason not to tune in again.

Ricky Gervais won't appear in the US Office

Ricky Gervais has dashed hopes he would appear in the US version of The Office's final episode.

Kerry Godliman interview

Kerry Godliman charts her rise from stand-up to her own Radio 4 show - via Ricky Gervais.

It is with relief that I can report that Ben Elton's new comeback series is hilarious! It is a classic situation comedy with great jokes and ... and funny characters who ... who ...

No. I'm sorry, it's no good. You see, it really is no good; in fact, it's a stinker. David Haig plays Gerald Wright (hence the title!), an annoying man who wants everything done a certain way. It's a perennial sitcom trope, done beautifully by Richard Briers in Ever Decreasing Circles, for instance, or 
decently by Chris Barrie in The Brittas Empire. He's a health and safety inspector for a local council, the department "that introduced the static seesaw and the horizontal slide [and said] babies must wear helmets when breastfeeding near the swings".

But what makes it a stinker are the jokes, which feel as though when the BBC moved out of Television Centre they found an old box at the back of the cupboard labelled "Leftover Sitcom Gags 1973". They are ancient, is what I'm saying, they have whiskers on them.

The main running joke involves Wright trying to wash his hands under a bathroom tap and soaking his trousers, and then someone coming in and thinking he's wet himself, and then shoogling about under a hand dryer and someone else coming in and thinking he's doing something filthy. And this happens three times.

Haig tries to make things sound funny by stretching and emphasising certain words - not a stammer, but a sort of word-mastication which would be excellent for someone trying to practice shorthand or audio typing dictation, if anyone still does that nowadays.

The show's token nod to modernity is that Wright lives with his daughter and her female partner (played by Beattie Edmondson, daughter of Elton's old chum Adrian - how cosy). He has to buy a present and they suggest a shop called Girl Shack - wait, Girl Shack? In 2013? I take it Chic Chicks or Trendy Togs or Burdz Boutique were all taken?

Finally, there is the catchphrase: "Don't get me started!" which Wright says when particularly exasperated. This is very nearly "Are you 'avin' a laugh?" from Ricky Gervais' spoof sitcom When The Whistle Blows. Sorry, Ben: this isn't 
the one that's going to win over your critics.