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 |