Ricky Gervais
Ricky Dene Gervais (/dʒərˈveɪz/ jer-VAYS; born 25 June 1961) is an English comedian, actor, writer, and director. He is perhaps best known for co-creating, writing, and acting in the British television series The Office (2001–2003).[6] He has won seven BAFTA Awards, five British Comedy Awards, two Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and the Rose d'Or twice (2006 and 2019), as well as a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. In 2007, he was placed at No. 11 on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups[7] and at No. 3 on the updated 2010 list.[8] In 2010, he was named on the Time 100 list of the world's most influential people.[9]
Gervais initially worked in the music industry, attempting a career as a pop star in the 1980s as the singer of the new-wave act Seona Dancing and working as the manager of the then unknown band Suede before turning to comedy. Gervais appeared on The 11 O'Clock Show on Channel 4 between 1998 and 2000, garnering a reputation as a blunt and often controversial social critic. In 2000, he was given a Channel 4 spoof talk show, Meet Ricky Gervais. He achieved greater mainstream fame the following year with his BBC television mock documentary series The Office. It was followed by Extras in 2005. He co-wrote and co-directed both programmes with Stephen Merchant. In addition to writing and directing the shows, he played the lead roles of David Brent in The Office and Andy Millman in Extras. He starred in 2016 comedy film David Brent: Life on the Road, which he also wrote and directed.[10]
Gervais began his stand-up career in the late 1990s. He has performed five multi-national stand-up comedy tours, and he wrote the Flanimals book series. Gervais, Merchant, and Karl Pilkington created the podcast The Ricky Gervais Show, which has spawned various spin-offs starring Pilkington and produced by Gervais and Merchant.[11] Gervais has also starred in the Hollywood films Ghost Town, the Night at the Museum trilogy, For Your Consideration, and Muppets Most Wanted. He wrote, directed, and starred in The Invention of Lying and the Netflix-released Special Correspondents. He hosted the Golden Globe Awards in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2016, and again in 2020. Gervais also appears on the game show Child Support. Currently, Gervais is credited as the creator, executive producer, director, and writer for the Netflix comedy series After Life, where he plays the lead role of Tony Johnson.
Early life
Ricky Dene Gervais[12] was born on 25 June 1961[13] at Battle Hospital in Reading, Berkshire.[14] He was raised in Whitley, Berkshire, along with brother Larry (born 1945), sister Marsha (born 1948), and brother Robert (born 1950).[15] His father, Lawrence Raymond "Jerry" Gervais (1919–2002), a French-Canadian from Pain Court, Ontario, emigrated to the UK whilst on foreign duty during the Second World War and worked as a labourer and hod carrier.[16] He met Gervais' English mother, Eva Sophia (née House; 1925–2000),[17] during a blackout, and they settled in Whitley. She died aged 74 of lung cancer.[18]
Gervais attended Whitley Park Infants and Junior Schools, and received his secondary education at Ashmead Comprehensive School; after a spell as a gardener at the University of Reading, he moved on to University College London (UCL) in 1980.[19][20] He intended to study biology but changed to philosophy after two weeks, and earned an upper second-class honours degree in the subject.[21] During his time at UCL, he met Jane Fallon, with whom he has been in a relationship since 1982.[22]
Career
Music
In 1983, during his final year as a student at University College London, Gervais and college friend Bill Macrae formed the new wave pop duo Seona Dancing. They were signed by London Records, which released two of their singles—"More to Lose" and "Bitter Heart". The songs failed to chart inside the UK top 75.[23] Despite not being successful in the UK, Seona Dancing did manage to score a hit in the Philippines with "More to Lose".[24] He also worked as the manager for Suede before they became successful in the 1990s.[25]
In 2013, Gervais performed a live tour as David Brent along with a band under the name "Foregone Conclusion". Gervais and the band performed songs written under the Brent character including songs such as "Equality Street" and "Free Love Freeway".[26] Gervais also produced a series of YouTube videos under the title 'Learn Guitar with David Brent', featuring acoustic guitar versions of nine songs.
In 2016, as part of the Life on Road film promotion, Gervais published the David Brent Songbook[27] containing 15 songs. These were also recorded for the album Life on the Road, under the name of David Brent and Foregone Conclusion.
Radio
Gervais worked as an assistant events manager for the University of London Union (ULU), then moved from ULU to a job as head of speech at the alternative radio station Xfm.[28] Needing an assistant, Gervais interviewed the first person whose curriculum vitae he saw. It belonged to Stephen Merchant.[29] In 1998 Gervais was made redundant when the station was taken over by the Capital Radio group.[30] Around this time he was also a regular contributor to Mary Anne Hobbs's Radio 1 show, performing vox pop interviews in unlikely locations.[31]
After the first series of The Office, Gervais and Merchant returned to Xfm in November 2001 for a Saturday radio show as conquering heroes. This was when the pair first worked with Karl Pilkington, who produced the shows and later collaborated with them on their series of podcasts.[32]
In October 2017, Gervais began hosting the weekly radio show Ricky Gervais Is Deadly Sirius on Sirius XM.[33]
Podcast
See also: The Ricky Gervais Show and List of The Ricky Gervais Show episodes
On 5 December 2005, Guardian Unlimited began offering free weekly podcasts, including The Ricky Gervais Show featuring Gervais, Merchant, and Karl Pilkington.[34] Throughout January and February 2006 the podcast was consistently ranked the number-one podcast in the world; it appeared in the 2007 Guinness World Record for the world's most-downloaded podcast, having gained an average of 261,670 downloads per episode during its first month.[35] Two more series—each with six podcasts—were released between February and September 2006.
In late 2006, three more free podcasts were released. Together called "The Podfather Trilogy", they debuted individually at Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.[36] These three were known by Gervais and Merchant as "The Fourth Season". In October 2007 another free full-length podcast was released through iTunes; this podcast was originally given out for free during a performance of Gervais's Fame stand-up tour in London. On 25 November 2007 Gervais, Merchant and Pilkington released another free full-length podcast, which lasted just over an hour.
In August 2008, Gervais, Merchant and Pilkington recorded their fifth season of audiobooks, totaling 4 chapters, which were released on 16 September 2008. These audiobooks were described as the 'guide to...' series, covering several topics. As of May 2011, there are 12 "Guides" in total: Medicine, Natural History, Arts, Philosophy, The English, Society, Law & Order, The Future, The Human Body, The Earth, The World Cup 2010, and Comic Relief.[37] The conversations typically begin on topic, but constantly stray away from the topic at hand.
Television
Early television appearances
Gervais has contributed to the BAFTA-winning The Sketch Show (ITV), penning several sketches. His mainstream-TV on-screen debut came in September 1998 as part of Channel 4's Comedy Lab series of pilots. His one-off show Golden Years focused on a David Bowie-obsessed character called Clive Meadows.[38]
Gervais then came to much wider national attention with an obnoxious, cutting persona featured in a topical slot that replaced Ali G's segments on the satirical Channel 4 comedy programme The 11 O'Clock Show in early 1999, in which his character used as many expletives as was possible and produced an inordinate amount of politically incorrect statements. Among the other regular featured comedians on the show was Mackenzie Crook, later a co-star of The Office. Two years later, Gervais went on to present his own comedy chat show for Channel 4 called Meet Ricky Gervais. It was poorly received and has since been mocked by Gervais himself.
Throughout this time, Gervais also wrote for the BBC sketch show Bruiser and The Jim Tavare Show.[39]
The Office
The Office started when Stephen Merchant, while on a BBC production course, had to make his own short film. In August 1999 he made a docu-soap parody, set in an office, with help from Ash Atalla, who was shown a 7-minute video called 'The Seedy Boss'. Thus David Brent was created. Merchant passed this tape on to the BBC's Head of Entertainment Paul Jackson at the Edinburgh Fringe, who then passed it on to Head of Comedy Jon Plowman, who eventually commissioned a full-pilot script from Merchant and Gervais.[40]
The first six-episode series of The Office aired in the UK in July and August 2001 to little fanfare or attention.[41] Word-of-mouth, repeats, and DVDs helped spread the word, building up momentum and anticipation for the second series, also comprising six episodes.[42] Following the success of The Office's second series, Gervais was named the most powerful person in TV comedy by Radio Times.[43]
In 2004, The Office won the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy as well as Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy for Gervais, who said in a 2015 BBC interview that the award was the gateway to America for him.[44]
The Office brand has since been remade for audiences in Sweden, France, Germany, Quebec, Brazil, and the United States.[45] Gervais and Merchant are producers of the American version, and they also co-wrote the episode "The Convict" for the show's third season.[46] Gervais has said that the episode "Training" is his favourite, where Brent plays his guitar and sings.
Extras
Extras had its debut on the BBC on 21 July 2005; directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the sitcom ran for twelve episodes and starred Gervais as Andy Millman, a background artist. Millman is more self-aware and intentionally humorous than Gervais's The Office character David Brent. Guest stars on the first series of Extras include Ross Kemp, Les Dennis, Patrick Stewart, Vinnie Jones, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Stiller, Kate Winslet and Francesca Martinez. A second series began on 14 September 2006 in the UK and featured appearances by Daniel Radcliffe, Dame Diana Rigg, Orlando Bloom, Sir Ian McKellen, Chris Martin, Keith Chegwin, Robert Lindsay, Warwick Davis, Ronnie Corbett, Stephen Fry, Richard Briers, Patricia Potter, Sophia Myles, Moira Stuart, David Bowie, Robert De Niro and Jonathan Ross.
A Christmas special of Extras aired on 27 December 2007 in the UK and on 16 December 2007 in the US, featuring guest appearances by George Michael, Clive Owen, Gordon Ramsay, Jonathan Ross, and David Tennant.
Gervais was influenced by Curb Your Enthusiasm, in making Extras, particularly in the format of celebrities making fools of themselves or subverting their public personas.[48]
In 2007, Gervais won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for his portrayal of Andy Millman in the second series of Extras. As Gervais was not present at the awards ceremony, the trophy was accepted on his behalf by Steve Carell, the actor who starred as regional manager Michael Scott—the counterpart to Gervais's David Brent—on the American adaptation of The Office.[49]
The Guardian's Chris Tryhorn explained the "few gripes" he had with Extras, "particularly in the second series". "You can forgive Gervais a certain arrogance after the success of The Office, but..." He remarks on the confused tone of the series, taking in the clash between the broad comedy of characters Barry (Shaun Williamson) and Darren (Stephen Merchant), and the apparent parody of this style with When The Whistle Blows, and "given their total indulgence of Gervais, the BBC is portrayed as interfering, its comedy department run by a rather crudely stereotyped gay couple".[50]
The Ricky Gervais Show
The Ricky Gervais Show is an animated TV show that debuted on US cable network HBO on 19 February 2010.[51][52] In the UK, the first series began airing on 23 April 2010 on Channel 4. The show was developed using original podcast recordings from The Ricky Gervais Show starring Gervais, Stephen Merchant, and Karl Pilkington. After receiving a loyal and enthusiastic following in the US, cable channel HBO recommissioned the show for a second series, which aired in 2011,[53] and a third series which started airing in April 2012.
Life's Too Short
Life's Too Short began airing on BBC Two on 10 November 2011.[54][55] Gervais and Stephen Merchant would write this observational sitcom from an idea by Warwick Davis. It is described by Gervais as being about "the life of a showbiz dwarf" and as "a cross between Extras and The Office". The show stars actor Davis playing a fictionalised version of himself, as well as Gervais and Merchant.[56] Premium cable channel HBO, who co-produced the series with the BBC, had the US rights and began airing the series on 19 February 2012.[57][58]
An Idiot Abroad
An Idiot Abroad is a travel documentary produced by Gervais and Merchant where a reluctant Pilkington travels around the world, with his reactions to people and places recorded. Occasionally, Gervais and Merchant call to surprise him with a new place to visit or task to do. Pilkington reports back mostly complaining about the situation. Gervais says there is no planning, a camera crew follows his friend around filming for many hours - which Gervais edits down to an hour each episode.[59]
Two series and a Christmas special have aired; series one involves Pilkington visiting the Seven Wonders of the World. In the second show he chooses to complete tasks from a bucket list provided by Gervais and in the special Warwick Davis joins Pilkington on a journey following Marco Polo's route from Italy to China.
