Ah, my friends. What do we talk about when we talk about Ricky Gervais? The genius co-creator of The Office, which still stands as an unassailable comedy masterwork 17 years after it was first broadcast? The writer? The performer? The provocateur, the class clown, the multi-millionaire, the self-aggrandising pub bore, the rationalist, the animal-lover, the free-speech advocate, the liberal-baiter, the hypocrite, the coward?
All are on display at one point or another in Humanity, Gervais’s first standup show since 2010’s Science. It is a much better, less fragmented, more controlled show than Science, and it is such a pleasure to watch Gervais work. All the talents that went into making David Brent a character that lodged in the collective consciousness for ever – the pitch-perfect delivery, the immaculate timing, a darting look here, a jaw jutting in real or faux disbelief there, all nudging the audience to exactly where he wants them with a strange, fluid grace to it all – make him brilliant.
| 1 | Better Than Jesus |
| 2 | Dogs |
| 3 | The Golden Globes |
| 4 | Big Controversy |
| 5 | Celebrity Feud |
| 6 | Deadnaming |
| 7 | Legally A Chimp |
| 8 | Life Cycle |
| 9 | Birth |
| 10 | Twitter Outrage |
| 11 | Dinner Party |
| 12 | Getting Old |
| 13 | Uncle Reginald |
| 14 | Floating Testicles |
| 15 | Social Media |
| 16 | Better Late Than Dead |
| 17 | Hampstead |
| 18 | Out Of Touch |
| 19 | Children |
| 20 | Adoption |
| 21 | Photos Of Kids |
| 22 | Spoiled |
| 23 | But Allergies |
| 24 | Scients |
| 25 | Depends On The Joke |
| 26 | People Take Everything Personally |
| 27 | I Should Have Left It |
| 28 | Bob |
