Ricky Gervais

Ricky Gervais: 'I've left behind the veil of irony'

The award-winning comic on hurting people's feelings, never reading books, and why Derek makes him well up.

Like many, I've been disappointed with Ricky Gervais's comedy recently, but I'm going to stand up for him regarding Derek. I don't think that it ­exploits the mentally disabled and there are some sweet ­moments. It just isn't very funny.

Derek a little too full of self-congratulation

If you'd asked me, I wouldn't have brought Derek back for a series. To my mind, the pilot of Ricky Gervais's comedy about an assistant in a retirement home had already fully explored its awkward - and testing - balance of comedy and emotion.

Ricky Gervais' Derek: cruel, or just unusual?

Ricky Gervais says Derek, his latest comedy creation, does not have a disability. But is this claim credible?

Derek new series to largely positive Twitter response

Ricky Gervais' controversial comedy-drama Derek received an overwhelmingly positive response from viewers when it returned to Channel 4 for a full series.

Derek watched by 1.4m viewers

Ricky Gervais's first full series of Derek began with a respectable audience last night. The Channel 4 care home sitcom was watched by 1.44m (7.7%) and 207,000 on +1.

Tasteless? No. Pointless? Possibly. It's hard to believe, after last year's misfiring pilot, that Derek would have got a series commission without Ricky Gervais's involvement.

Shattered nuts and well-used sledgehammers litter the scene of this strange comedy-drama mock-doc: telling trumps showing every time, and the converted cover their ears while the preacher drones on about tolerance over a cloying piano soundtrack.

For the uninitiated, Derek tells the story of the eponymous innocent savant (Gervais), a slightly slow but tender-hearted care worker in a retirement home, misunderstood by the outside world but loved by those who take the trouble to get to know him. In this week's opener, said retirement home is slated for closure by the council. Derek and chums Dougie (Karl Pilkington) and Kev (David Earl) join home manager Hannah (the excellent Kerry Godliman) in taking some direct action.

No one can doubt Derek's good intentions, but it owes its existence to a man desperate to prove he's not who we think he is. And as for the comedy? Well, with apologies to Oscar Wilde, the final scene is so hilariously sappy that you'd need a heart of stone not to laugh.

The bleak world of Derek

Whilst I appreciate Ricky Gervais is trying something new, I can't say I enjoyed the opening episode of Derek as much as I'd hoped.

TV Review: Derek

Unfortunately, most of the problems that plagued the pilot return intact. Ricky Gervais's mannered characterisation stands in uncomfortable contrast to the underplaying of the rest of the cast.

Ricky Gervais shouldn't have taken the title role

Kerry Godliman and Karl Pilkington shine in the new series however Ricky Gervais shouldn't have taken the title role.