Derek
- TV sitcom
- Channel 4
- 2012 - 2014
- 14 episodes (2 series)
Bittersweet comedy drama written by and starring Ricky Gervais as a worker in a retirement home. Also features Kerry Godliman, David Earl, Holli Dempsey, Brett Goldstein, Karl Pilkington and more.
Press clippings Page 12
Ricky Gervais: If Derek was real, I would love him
Ricky Gervais has opened up about his new TV show Derek revealing that he gets emotional thinking about the titular character.
Ann Lee, Metro, 3rd February 2013Ricky 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.
Elizabeth Day, The Guardian, 2nd February 2013Like 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.
Aidan Smith, The Scotsman, 2nd February 2013Derek 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.
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent (Ireland), 1st February 2013Ricky Gervais' Derek: cruel, or just unusual?
Ricky Gervais says Derek, his latest comedy creation, does not have a disability. But is this claim credible?
Mark Lawson, The Guardian, 31st January 2013Derek: episode one, Channel 4, review
On a conceptual level the Derek pilot was a triumph. Unfortunately, no one in the real world watches TV on a conceptual level. Take away the argument about its rights and wrongs and Derek, as a show, was just a teensy bit dull. Now that it's been plumped up into a full series, mere dullness has morphed in to something worse - far from being too nasty, Derek has become too nice, lurching at times into censoriousness and preaching.
Benji Wilson, The Telegraph, 31st January 2013Derek 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.
Caroline Preece, Metro, 31st January 2013Last night's viewing: Derek, Channel 4
Oddly, in fact, it's Derek's redeeming qualities that are the hardest to take - a sense of self-congratulation at the refinement of its own sentiments that has a little bit of the bully in it too.
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent, 31st January 2013Derek: A compassionate tale, lightly told
It's a testament to his stamp on TV comedy that Derek was instantly recognisable as 'classic Gervais' - 23 sweet minutes that created a distinctive tableau of life inside a small care home.
Caroline Frost, The Huffington Post, 31st January 2013TV Review: Derek
This episode felt slightly weaker than the 2012 pilot, but at last Gervais avoided the ill-advised slapstick moments involving Derek.
Dan Owen, Dan's Media Digest, 31st January 2013