Ricky Gervais hasn't lost it
12:37pm
I rarely allow myself to be “Outraged of Westminster”, but this scandalous post by Jim Shelley, the Mirror’s TV critic, has forced me to make an exception. Ricky Gervais has not “lost it” or become a “tiresome embarrassment”. Indeed, the miracle of the man is that he has managed to escape the role of David Brent – one of the greatest comic characters of all time – to produce another excellent series (Extras), establish himself as a top-rank stand-up, produce the best podcasts I have ever heard, and write a series of splendid children’s books (the Flanimals). Having been at Live Earth on Saturday, I do not remotely recognise Shelley’s description of Gervais’s performance – nor did he “die on his feet” at the Diana Concert where, forced by technical trouble to improvise for much longer than he expected, he kept the stadium in stitches with – yes – the Brent dance. He is without question the most talented British comedian since Peter Cook and John Cleese and deserves better than this sort of nonsense.
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Comments
Rob
July 11th, 2007 3:34pmYeah, I don't get the criticisms. I guess they didn't see the Brent dance episode of the Office or the Bowie ep. of Extras. I was amazed that the non-story was on buzzfeed and after watching the youTube video I have to wonder if Buzzfeed is "having a laugh". The crowd seemed to enjoy him. Slow news day?
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peter carrol
July 12th, 2007 9:20amI'm entirely with Jim Kelly on this one, The Office was excellent, but subsequently Gervais has exposed himself as a creepy, irritating, omnipresent boor. Extras is a weak shadow of the Office in every sense, and I know many people who would happy if he just f-ed off. PS For some real cringeworthy horror, check out Rick meets Garry Shandling on youtube. Fascinatingly bad.
John Q
July 16th, 2007 6:26amYeah, there'some embarrassing moments out there, but check out Gervais' take on Creation and Genesis. Definitely LOL material.
Richard Davidson
August 2nd, 2007 2:18amI read the original gervais article online... not realising it's Jim Shelly of the Mirror and bloody 'shellyvision' horror... man's an idiot... gervais is pitched two miles above his ilk...
Seamus
January 4th, 2009 11:45pmThank you for posting this. I was absolutely furious when I read the article written by Jim Shelley.
Gervais is a fantastic comedy writer and performer, one of the best of his time (along with Merchant of course).
The article written by Shelley seemed very bitter and relatively unprovoked. Fair enough, you didn't enjoy his stand up (which is great in my opinion) comedy is very subjective, it's very foolish to ask has someone lost it. I mean, extras was roughly a year ago, the office a few years ago. Both are excellent, is it really possible to judge this soon if Ricky Gervais has lost it? Shelleys article seems to be more personal than anything.
I realise this comment comes quite a while after the article but I only recently found it and the comments are closed there so I had to vent my rage somewhere else.
All I can say now is that series two of Extras along with the special really showed the few critics that there were, especially on the question of fame and dealing with it. Good job Ricky. Keep it coming.