Ricky Gervais and Guests at artsdepot

Ricky Gervais and Guests at artsdepot

28 November, 2008
by: Emma

Well it's not every day you get to see a Ricky Gervais set in a venue with a capacity of 50 but yesterday was indeed such a day.  No smug press comps, no promises of reviews; I got my ticket like everyone else – with a huge dollop of luck and by waiting on the phone for half an hour in a queue.

The gig at artsdepot is in aid of Gervais' upcoming tour Science and is a way of testing out new material on a small audience before it goes big - to cut the wheat from the chaff as Alan Partridge would say, or as Gervais says: "You'll laugh at the good bits and you won't laugh at the bad bits and then I can work out what stuff to keep and what to throw away.  So some bits will be exclusive to you.  They'll be shit but they'll be exclusive."

The night, called Ricky Gervais and Guests, consists of Gervais doing short periods of stand-up with two support acts Richard Morris and Brian Gittins in between.  Some of his stuff is quite random and it's hard to tell whether it will be used for the tour or not.  Like most of his stand-up it tends to be thoughts he's had or stories that tie in with them.  A really simple section is just about spiders: "Have you ever noticed how spiders are always ready?"  Most of the joke hinges on his brilliant physical interpretation of a spider with crossed eyes and legs poised for action, but  he also makes a good point that you'll never see a spider having a bit of a rest: “You might think he's not ready just because you can see an empty web.  Go on just give it a tap, see what happens.”

Another section is about bad taste jokes: "Do you ever tell your girlfriend racist jokes to annoy her?”  He explains that at first she won't believe that he's really racist so he has to up the ante and make them sicker and sicker.  "Do you think that's what happened to Hitler?  He was just trying to annoy his girlfriend and it got out of hand?”

The most coherent section and the most obvious piece from the upcoming tour is on religion (he's an atheist) and the story of Noah.  He has a children's picturebook which he takes us through commenting on the images and text.  A particular section involves God being angry about the wicked behaviour of men (shown crossing his arms) and vowing to wipe everyone off the face of the earth: "Wipe everyone off the face off the earth?! Calm down, think about this, just tell that man to put the gold back!"  I particularly enjoy his references to Karl Pilkington and what he made of the book:  "Karl had a look and said he (God) looks a bit gay."  This at first seems like a playground comment but as Gervais minces round the stage and imitates God having a hissy fit with 'men' it becomes a very funny and astute quip.   In fact, some of my favourite bits are repeated Pilkington lines:  "I asked Karl how he can believe this story – how all the animals didn't eat each other, because there were lions and everything...and he said 'because everyone pulls together in a crisis don't they?" Classic. 

The whole of his act may have had a patchy feel to it but the great thing about Gervais is his natural good humour and confidence mean any normal quibbles one might have like lack of structure or links can be overlooked.  His humour is both smart and childish; rude jokes and interesting facts come hand in hand which balances the material perfectly.  You get the feeling if he had turned up with no jokes or preparation and just given us some thoughts off the top of his head, we'd have laughed just as much.

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Emma