Rolling UK Comedy Thread - "Ricky Don't Lose Larry David's Number

expect plenty of "breaking taboos" "disabled people love me" interviews from the twat soon, followed by an exciting new sitcom where he blacks up

Yeah, since I said I was going to watch it, I did and I agree that it just wasn't funny pretty much at any point.

The sex addict character was just bizarre and seemed to be the centerpiece of the show, in fact Germans was barely in it. Saw no reasonor need whatsoever for his character to have mental issues.

The biggest indicator that he has mental problems seems to be that he wonders who would win in fights between animals - one of his longest sequences is about rhino vs whale "if the rhino was the same size". Near the end he comes through a door with Pilkington saying "... but what if the chimp had a gun?"

Obviously nobody normal has ever had those conversations, especially not on the internet or even on a messageboard.

gervais is from the paul mccartney school of 'look everyone!! look how normal and well-adjusted and unaffected by fame i am!!' (with added 'no really the spastics love being the butt of my jokes')

like, he goes well out of his way to be seen with some omgfamous person just so he can say 'oh yeah look I don't actually care that he's famous, see, he's even coming round for tea tomorrow, but really i don't care how famous he is'

now i'm angry first thing in the morning

This Paddy McGuinness thing is less funny than Derek, that's for sure.

He's just made a joke about how badger is nearly a homonym for beaver, and beaver is a slang term for vagina.

The biggest indicator that he has mental problems seems to be that he wonders who would win in fights between animals

that at Gervais permanently pulling that inoffensive thing he refers to as his "mong face" complete with exaggerated underbite

like "look this guy is clearly a mong not that I have anything against mongs, I'm playing him sympathetically, see"

I'm watching this now (happened across it on 4seven). It's awful. I actually want to inflict physical pain on Gervais. I mean, he generally makes me think unpleasant things about him, but this is just so shite and I find his physical portrayal of Derek really offensive for the reasons onimo has mentioned there.

And to make it even worse, there's an ad for Mumford & Sons just turned up in the break.

coming from a background where my main exposure to british comedy was the late-night pbs "sitcoms" such as keeping up appearances and as time goes by (along with funnier stuff, tbf, such as flying circus & aybs), it's surprising to me that some of the personalities such as gervais, jimmy carr, justin lee collins etc. are even more abrasive than their us counterparts

the frankie boyles rely on the 'brute force' method of being funny

the frankie boyles rely on the 'brute force' method instead of being funny

^^^ fixed that for you

otm

It is so heartening to see that most of you people think entertainers like Gervais, Boyle etc are wankers and sort of beyond the pale. I despise 'em and am sick of listening to apologists. Just sort of saying well done ILX for maintaining a level of decency that seems to be quite rare these days.

they're not even doing it for the greater good or anything, they're doing it solely to be more famous

it seems to be a fairly uncomplicated stance tho inasmuch as no-one here seems to think they're funny? I guess if a bunch of ppl itt had reported back saying "well I got lots of guilty laughs out of it but overall fuck this guy" it might have piqued my interest but going on the examples cited above...

My problem with Derek is different. I don't think he's punching down, he's just colossally condescending. Derek is the mental-health version of the Magical Negro, wiser and kinder than anyone else. The dialogue directed against the strawman guy-in-a-suit was so hideously didactic and sentimental. I find it amazing that someone who made his name mocking characters for their lack of self-awareness now appears to have none itself. Derek is like a movie that Gervais would have been parodying in an episode of Extras. It's The Day the Clown Cried territory. And as one critic pointed out, a show that ostensibly complains about the marginalisation of old people by the uncaring, red-tape-obsessed state manages not to give its pensioner characters a single line of dialogue.

best review i've read of it so far, DL.

Yes, that's absolutely spot on.

fwiw, I am happy to admit in public that I have been known to find Jimmy Carr reasonably amusing, and used to like Frankie Boyle before he hit the self-destruct button (i.e pre-Tramadol Nights). His nihilism is too much for me now, and he seems to have entirely sacrificed the lolz in order to just be controversial. Or "controversial" with exaggerated scare quotes.

Still, well done Frankie on getting that column in the Sun

I watched the Office again recently and still loved it, but it's not surprising that Gervais actually is Brent.

I think Carr can be funny, but maybe in a way that's only notable by the ridiculously and confusingly low standards of (British) comedy. I mean, being funny isn't that hard, is it? If being funny is your job then how can you, average comedian, fail to do it so comprehensively?

Be fair, damn near everyone is shit at their job.

karl pilkington do we think he's funny? I like him

stewart lee's carpet remnant world was good, v much of a piece with his last few shoes but not yet bored of it

Fuckin android tho

ya tbf i'm here discussing comedy when i should be writing, maybe when that bald cunt from mock the week should be thinking up funny things he's instead writing about structuralism.

DL otm, and i also don't get why pilkington is in this at all. he plays pilkington (because he's not an actor), so you're never seeing dougie at all, you're only ever seeing pilkington.

the line of pathos that burns through this show is p clearly an excuse for gervais to say 'hey see, i am sympathetic toward mongs after all'. i don't get why he has to play the bloke with learning difficulties (beyond narcissism obv).

btw now we know how this is structured as a whole series: some people from head office the government have visited to close down the slough branch the care centre due to cutbacks cutbacks, and the office the heartwarming ending writes itself.

gervais is a classic dostoevskian buffoon, making a proud capering display of his expertise on his own dickishness, repellent to all.

another five years of this and he will very literally disappear up his own arse. meanwhile I'm keen to see what stephen merchant (who was not involved in 'derek') produces for hbo in america. I'm starting to suspect he's the ego restraint that gervais desperately needs.

jimmy carr is slightly different than the other comedians mentioned perhaps — i've found him funny on supporting appearances on shows like qi, and he obviously has a quick wit. i find the role he plays in planned stuff, stand-up or various hosting gigs, to be very obnoxious. there he seems a detached, bigoted, and utterly unlikeable person, which i don't believe he is in everyday life even with all the personal scandals. boyle has a similar persona but is somewhat funnier with it imo

Stephen Merchant, currently seen in MOVIE 43: this is guaranteed to be hot garbage, right

I've seen Jimmy Carr and David O'Doherty do an odd double act where Jimmy Carr just reads out one-liners and DOD vamps on his keyboard. I didn't hate it (though it's always been very mid-bill).

Actually, what was Life's Too Short like?

Also from IMDB, ooof:

Hello Ladies (2013– )
TV Series - Comedy
Your rating: -/10 (awaiting 5 votes)
Reviews: write review
A gawky Englishman comes to Los Angeles to find the woman of his dreams.

Oh, he was talking about that on Graham Norton last week. It's the premise of his stand-up tour, turned into a sitcom. In my head, it's a direct successor to Jim Carrey's version of Danny Wallace in Yes Man.

Actually, what was Life's Too Short like?

not sure tbh. the first episode had warwick davis playing david brent lite for the first half, and the second half was a completely out-of-place comedy sketch feat. ricky gervais and liam neeson. i don't even remember whether davis was in that entire scene. after that i gave up and wrote off the whole thing as another gervais vanity project (as did most of britain iirc).

Yeah I have in my head that there's a direct line from Life's Too Short to Derek (er, not that I've seen either of them), but Merchant was definitely on board with Life's Too Short, is why I was asking.

yeah, that surprised me too. perhaps that was his breaking point.

(he wasn't involved in the final idiot abroad series either iirc)

Ricky Gervais is such a blight these days.

I think Boyle is 100% persona. Reading him Tweet back and forth with other comics (some unlikely - he seems to be pretty tight with, like, Robin Ince) you get such a different sense of that guy.

gervais comes off well here (doesn't necessarily prove anything tho - most comics do given the opportunity to explain their behaviour in print - see also boyle)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2013/feb/02/ricky-gervais-interview-derek-comedy

Life's too short had brief moments of greatness but otherwise was either dull Brent rehashed or unlikely "excruciating" moments rehashed (e.g. Crap wedding speech that wouldn't have made it into the first draft of The Office). Also the Gervaise and Merchant or celeb bits were just bizarrely crowbarred in.

One episode of Life's Too Short had a grotesque scene in which Gervais accidentally offends Steve Carell over Skype, thus blowing any chance of him returning to the US Office, and complains about how much money he's just lost as a result, thus indicating that he has already made a far greater sum from The Office. Multi-millionaire loses chance to earn even more millions with a single Skype call - this is not a winning comedic premise. It was such a bizarre misjudgement to cast Warwick Davis as an early-Gervais-style no-hoper while Gervais himself plays a smug mogul, surrounded by framed posters of his movies and courted by celebrities, and gives himself a much easier ride than he gave, say, Ben Stiller in Extras. If ever somebody has become what he once despised.

Liam Neeson's bit was good though.

Liam Neeson's bit was amazing, one of the funniest things I've ever seen. The rest was generally somewhere between crap and mediocre.

One episode of Life's Too Short had a grotesque scene in which Gervais accidentally offends Steve Carell over Skype, thus blowing any chance of him returning to the US Office, and complains about how much money he's just lost as a result, thus indicating that he has already made a far greater sum from The Office. Multi-millionaire loses chance to earn even more millions with a single Skype call - this is not a winning comedic premise.

this, in a show about warwick davis

so...the prospect of new David Brent stuff for Comic Relief then...

is the brent stuff worth watching?

shame how poor the kevin eldon sketch show is. not hugely surprising though, v late in the game to be busting out a sketch show. if he had it in him he'd have done it long long ago.

in happier news, anna & katy, while not perfect, has some great moments (congratulations, the countdown thing before they milk it too much).

do wonder how the critics will respond to It's Kevin as he's the ultimate broadhseet comedy goldenboy. twitter seems divided between hate/love, but then again the same can be said for derek and that's probably the worst thing ever ever ever

gervais is over

nope, Derek got recommissioned