Ricky Gervais

Ricky Gervais to guest star on Curb Your Enthusiasm

Ricky Gervais is taking the Mick out of himself again - this time on Curb Your Enthusiasm with Larry David.

Francesca Martinez interview

Ricky Gervais and Jimmy Carr are fans, but Francesca Martinez, who has cerebal palsy, still can't get a gig on TV.

Ricky Gervais plays dolphin in US comedy Family Guy

The comedian Ricky Gervais has been cast as a dolphin in the animated American comedy show Family Guy.

Ricky Gervais says 'No' to hosting the Golden Globes

Funnyman Ricky Gervais has said it's unlikely he'll host the Golden Globes again.

You have to give sitcoms a chance, a huge chance. You have to take the amount of time you'd give, say, a prospective brother-in-law, and multiply that by the number of characters there are. Because eventually, once you've got to know them, you're going to find them a lot funnier.

This is the theory. I've heard it expounded a lot - although, admittedly, mainly by one person who works in TV. But trying not to fall into the trap of hating everything immediately, there are bits of Trollied (Sky 1) that are a little lazy; the plotting is a bit half-cocked. Jane Horrocks's interim manager is about to have a party, and she gets blown out by everybody, including her sister; she immediately swallows her pride and asks the guys on the butchery counter, and they immediately say no.

Computer programmers talk about the "five whys": so that if you ask "why" once, then you might partly mend a bug in a program, but if you ask it five times, then you'll probably design something quite good. It's a bit random, but try deploying it in a script meeting. Why do all her guests blow her out? Why is she so desperate to have the party in the first place? Why would she invite two people who manifestly dislike her, when she has a whole supermarket full of underlings? Why, when she's apparently quite a flexible person who finds it easy to put her vanity aside, doesn't she have more friends? Why did they cast Horrocks in the first place? Is it just because every time they thought "supermarket", they got a visual picture of her wrinkling her pretty nose and arguing with Prunella Scales?

I strongly suspect that the answer to all these questions is "We don't know" and that, furthermore, if this was a computer program, it would work for about five minutes, and then it would wipe your hard drive.

But I'd be lying if I said I didn't laugh at its puerile humour, sometimes out loud. Two check-out ladies, discussing Woody Allen, agree that running off with your stepdaughter is creepy, then one of them throws in: "I gave my cousin a handjob once, in a caravan." OK, it's not Oscar Wilde. And nor is the extremely extended wordplay between two homophonous phrases, one of which is qwite wude. (Horrocks is the interim deputy manager, and says "while I'm interimming . . .", whereupon the butchers go "loads of people are into rimming" and she says, "you need to face up to the fact that I'm the only one who's interimming", and they fall about. And so did I. I'm not proud of it). Nevertheless, I'm afraid it didn't really grow on me for its second episode, and its obvious antecedents - it's trying so hard to be The Office that it has Ricky Gervais's face tattooed, metaphorically, across its own - grated a bit. The Dawn-and-Tim-alike romance is particularly plain, and I don't think it really benefits from the unavoidable comparison. Though you never know, watch it a bit longer, you may come to love them.

Ricky Gervais plays clown in Life's Too Short

Ricky Gervais plays the joker with tiny Warwick Davis during filming of new sitcom Life's Too Short.

Gervais 'crucifixion' photo rejected by magazine

Ricky Gervais missed out on the chance to land a coveted cover feature in Rolling Stone magazine after submitting a photograph of himself in a crucifixion pose with the word 'atheist' painted on his chest.

Ricky Gervais: My show isn't atheist

Ricky Gervais has defended his new TV comedy about an atheist who dies and goes to heaven, insisting he's not trying to "undermine the moral fabric of America".

Ricky Gervais blogs about divine new role in Afterlife

Comedian Ricky Gervais has revealed details about his new television series Afterlife, in which he will appear as an "arrogant, wisecracking" God.

Top 10 Ricky Gervais comedy moments

Ricky Gervais is about to unleash a new show about a little fella, called Life's Too Short, and he's working on a sitcom Stateside about an atheist who unexpectedly bags himself an afterlife. Here's a look at the top 10 moments which have cemented his place in comedy heaven...