Ricky Gervais tickets - Thursday & Saturday

[Jose]

Dearest forumites,

I have some spare tickets for Ricky Gervais at The Hammersmith ''Carling'' Apollo for Thursday (tonight) and Saturday.

I currently have 4 tickets on each night, Will happily trade at face value (Thursday - ?30, Saturday - ?40) - or any reasonable offer.

Do send me a PM - if for tonight, I can meet you at Hammersmith, or if for Saturday, I can pop over to anywhere in ED / local surrounds on Friday eve / Saturday daytime.

Cheers,

joe

[Alan Dale]

History will remember Ricky Gervais about as kindly as it does Bernard Manning.

His comedy includes thinly veiled racism, sexism and even anti disabled sentiment.

Try convincing yourself that you are laughing at David Brent rather than with him but I'm not convinced.

[LostThePlot]

Alan Dale Wrote:

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> Try convincing yourself that you are laughing at

> David Brent rather than with him but I'm not

> convinced.

I have to agree with you there, never quite sure where the differentiation between the two are...having said that though, some of his stuff is funny. Animals had a number of good bits in it, esp the elephants swimming right at the end...

[Keef]

I liked The Office, but then I realised that in the other programme (extra?) and in every interview I've seen or heard with Ricky Gervais he's exactly the same. I think he actually is a complete tw@t, it's not just a character. Fair play to him though, he's worked out how to market himself pretty well.

Anyway, the Administrator will tell us to take this conversation to the lounge...

[char1ie]

Ricky Gervais is a comic genius. Extras is fantastic. I remember him on the 11 o clock show. He was horrible and very funny. I agree that his comic persona is very close to his own. But he is funny. And offensive can be funny.

Jose, I've sent you a PM.

Charlie

[Alan Dale]

I have enjoyed Gervais' comedy. But it is a guilty pleasure. When I'm laughing at a bloke with one leg longer than the other I am not laughing at Gervais laughing at him.

I think Bernard Manning was funny too but is being funny sufficient or do comedians have any other responsibilities?

I'm not sure but then able bodied white middle class males are rarely the butt of the joke.

[LostThePlot]

Alan Dale Wrote:

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> I'm not sure but then able bodied white middle

> class males are rarely the butt of the joke.

Apart from the whole feminist movement... ;-) (THAT WAS A JOKE LADIES!!)

Yes agreed though.

[mockney piers]

Quelle surprise.

[Keef]

I have to admit that I thought Bernard Manning could be very funny. I hated all his racist sh!t, but Stphen Fry himself said he'd never met anyone who could deliver a joke better and with such great timing.

[*Bob*]

I'm in the same Gervais boat as Alan etc al.

I charted his progress: those first faltering steps on the '11 O' Clock Show', where he was just appalling (contrast with Ali G's first appearances on the same show.. now somewhat ruined by ubiquity, obviously, but simply brilliant at the time).

Then came 'The Office', which for some reason I didn't quite understand, everyone pissed their pants over. Apparently it was because 'I didn't work in an office' so therefore did not possess the faculty to grasp its brilliance. Which is b*llocks. It was innovative and watchable, but - call me old-fashioned here - I thought the essence of comedy was to be found in the laughter which it brings about. And the office isn't actually particularly funny. I've sat and watched it with die-hard fans. And they don't laugh much either. Just bang-on about 'how brilliant it is.. because that's just what it's like in and office' (ie a bit dull with infrequent laughs)

I was then treated to some stand-up DVDs. The man has no stand-up ability whatsoever. He might as well be reading from notes. In fact, I think he may have been in one of them. If he'd have been an unknown up at a proper comedy club (and not in a room filled with his fawning fans) he wouldn't have lasted two minutes.

I probably enjoyed 'Extras' more than anything else - mostly for the star appearances. But it is indeed a guilty pleasure. Once you've taken out the usual gamut of spastic, dwarf, race-related etc gags there is too much left apart from the novelty star turn. And I'm not getting all right-on. I think it's perfectly fine to make jokes about the disabled, dwarves etc.. it's just a very fine line as to how you go about it in order for it to be funny. And he's on the wrong side of it.

Er.. anyway.. good luck with the tickets!

[spadetownboy]

make room in the boat im coming in as well, just proves how good marketing and word of mouth can turn an below average performer into the saviour of british comedy. gervais has managed to make a career on the back of the unfunny and totally unfathomable the office, and as bob has pointed out the only reason the equally unfunny extras was received as well as it was,was because of the guest appearances of proper stars with acting and comic ability, one also suspects they didnt do it just for the privilage of working with gervaise.

[char1ie]

Extras is very very funny. And makes you cringe even more than the office. But hilarious in places. And his journey from jobbing extra to creator of pleb tv comedy to national hate figure is a very clever story. It is smart and funny.

Charlie

[dave]

I'm with the person and fellow licence-payer who was commenting on that BBC ad (elsewhere somewhere on the interweb - the ad with "would you let some people who have never written/directed etc etc make their own comedy programme?" which then segues into the "hilarious" chicken dance thing and smugly says "That's what we do...") who said that it was a bit like having your house burgled, including having your camcorder taken, and then being sent the video of the resulting crack party which has been funded by the sale of your possessions.

My opinon? Ricky Gervais is an occasionally amusing buffoon who has been hanging around Bloomsbury/the BBC courtesy of his partner for long enough for his moment to come - note that he was the music editor on "This Life", which I can't imagine involved a lot more than flicking through some Britpop CD's and picking the most zeitgeitsy tracks...

His so-called interviews with Larry David and Garry Shandling were just as embarrassing as anything "David Brent" has done in action and he represents a modern telling of the Emperor's New Clothes. "The Office" was well-made etc, but was it genius? I, for one, think not despite how often I have been told otherwise on every BBC channel.

But... he does appear to have a reasonable amount of self-awareness. He isn't always articulate in expressing it - which might or might not be part of the "persona" - but, according to the freesheet review I read this morning of the current show, he does at least acknowledge that it's a fine line between his material and that of Jim Davidson.

As for Bernard Manning, I am not sure about the parallel. I didn't really sympathise with the vitriol that poured out on BM's death (maybe I am too young since for people my age he was always a caricature) but I did think that Marcus Brigstocke's point in his Grauniad blog entry suggesting that saying Manning had "great timing" was akin to saying that the (then topical) gunman at Virginia Tech was "a really good shot" might have had some validity...

[Keef]

Didn't RG manage bands at some stage? I'm sure he managed Suede at some stage.

[*Bob*]

I'm sure he did allsorts before his well-connected squeeze managed to get him a break.