I suspect this will...

Currently in development -

but Drakey RT'd this blog link this morning

http://adrakesprogress.blogspot.com/2011/07/ripples.html

I've never really liked Gervais, always preferred the other people in his shows to his performances but this Mong-gate has shown him to be the classic shoolyard bully. You can't reclaim what you don't own, Ricky.
of course its just this outcry he's wanting to promote his rather flimsy premised new show.

Oh and fuck off with karl Pilkington, it's also a thin joke that was dead years ago.

But I do suspect that his ego has now got the better of him and that he's now making a bit of a nob of himself. Someone, probably Stephen Merchant, needs to tap him on the shoulder and have a quiet word.

most of Ricky's work, but as DFB says, the Karl Pilkington thing became threadbare a long time ago.

Virtually everyone I grew up and went to school with is exactly like Karl and it's painfully obvious that he's faking the "confused Northerner" routine these days.

"He's trying".

He's much too trying for my tastes; I can't stand the man, and if this is the beginning of a major fall from grace, I'm afraid for me it'll just be the emperor's nakedness being acknowledged far too late.

and I thought that certain episodes of 'Extras' were quite funny but it's becoming increasingly clear with every new project that unlike, say, Steve Coogan, Ricky is a man of limited scope and ambition. I'm also getting very irritated by that high-pitched laugh.

( Oh, and he can't act either ).

about this new show and this is the first I've heard of his 'mong' comments.

It is funny to me though how people are so easily offended sometimes. If comedy was just reduced to being funny about things that aren't offensive to someone then it would be unfunny very quickly.

And who hasn't told a tasteless joke to someone at some point? A funy tasteless joke is still funny. An unfunny one isn't.

Comedy is either funny or it's not. If it ain't your thing baby, move on.

Clear as a kick in the gonads.

I think he's made me laugh more than any other comedian in recent years. Loved the Office, loved Extras, love his stand up and I think Karl Pilkington is brilliant. I don't really care whether it's fake, it cracks me up.

EDIT: Definitely laughing with Karl rather than at him. I don't think he's an idiot, I love his view of the world

The second clip looks like Extras but with the little guy in place of the lovable bit-dim-blonde.

Take one uneducated average bloke (lets park the issue of whether it's an act or not), and instead of the professional wordy travellers we see lots of, lets drop him into extreme situations around the world and let him relate the experience in a way that, deep down, most of us probably would do if we were there....

Then, take one wide-boy bully and a sidekick, and drop them on top of the show for the sole purpose of taking his observations and laughing theatrically at them as if they are the stupidest words ever uttered and nudging us with a snidey grin to join in with the joke against the thicko.

Actually Ricky, we're secretly on Karl's side. He's saying what we would all say if we were dropped into a slumhotel in the back of beyond, or told to engage in martial arts and get a smack on the head.... and Ricky, we're not on your side. Thank you Sky+ for allowing me to FF when your voice comes on.....

And now, sounds like we can substitute the uneducated average bloke for a below average height bloke as the but of the bully's jokes.

Just as they couldn't understand what all the fuss was about when they taunted an old man about his granddaughter's sex life, Gervais apparently just doesn't get that laughing at people with learning disabilities is something you grow out of when you're 13.

It's also interesting that he claims the meaning of the word has changed, but without specifying to what. It didn't seem to mean anything new when he used it last year in reference to the famously learning-disabled Susan Boyle.

Watch this and learn, comedy wannabes. This is how a true master of mirth does it.

To paraphrase the eminent social scientist Pesci, that is funny how exactly?

"One false move and I'm Jim Davidson," he said not long ago. Well, at least he's self-aware.

... he makes an interesting point - that words change over time - whether this was the original point of his mong-based tweets, I'm unsure. And of course he's being deliberately provocative - thats what he does. He seems to enjoy dropping himself in it though - and I'll be interested to see how he argues his corner. And on being offended....

But his defense was that 'gay' has changed in meaning now too. Personally (and I'm not gay) I find that word's 'modern' use utterly abhorrent.

More importantly, whether they change or not, they are based in the fact that the use of 'gay' was to suggest something derogatory and to say 'mong' was to imply a lack of intelligence or sense. Neither have pleasant foundations - I think he should have apologised, held his hands up and moved on.

Problem for him is to do that implies wrong doing and then the press would be all over him - still I'm not sure he's *that* fucking funny anyway.

in comedy- and rightly so. But, when treading controversial territory, it's surely a test of any comedian's genius to make something *funny* rather than offensive. So few of them can actually do this. Chris Morris springs to mind as a rare example. On the evidence of the new clips above, Ricky simply isn't in that class.

( But we kind of knew that already I guess ).

and Gervais has none.

Its fine to "say the unsayable" but then have the wit and intelligence to back it up. Chris Rock's "I hate niggers" skit is a prime example of someone taking language and concepts to make funny and insightful points.

Its his inability to admit he made a mistake and hold his hands up without falling back behind his "oh but I don't mean it really" defence that really grates. His whole act is having your cake and eating it

It's Gervais claiming he is somehow breaking down taboos by using the word "mong" that is offensive. I feel he used Francesca Martinez, a comic actor \ stand up who has cerebral palsy in an episode of 'Extras' in a way that I found uncomfortable but she was perfectly fine with.

I'd like to be sure that he wants us to laugh with, not at disability and would rather not people were just hired for jobs and defined by that disability. Its fine line between clever and stupid

I restrain myself from leaving negative comments on other people but it seems I am of a general consensus here. I personally do not find Ricky Gervais' style or content of humour at all intelligent nay even remotely funny while I of course advise others to live and let live. But there is something a bit malevolent and spiteful what he is dishing out nowadays. The Office was brilliant but it seems that there is more of David Brent to Gervais's character than he would care to admit.

It seems to be de rigeur these nowadays to be as unoffended as possible. If you express displeasure with jokes about disabled kids (see Frankie Boyle) you're seen as some sort of Daily Express reading saddoid.

and very badly wants to be playing with the big boys - like Louis CK & Chris Rock - but they've spent years developing the skills to do routines that could be offensive, yet they're able to make them funny and inoffensive without being PC. Gervais, whatever his past achievements, is not.

Just saying "Look at Susan Boyle, if you can - I mean she's a mong, isn't she?" is not by any stretch of the imagination a well-crafted joke, and the likes of Louis CK are doing something far more sophisticated than that.

Lots of us love an offensive joke in the company of people that we know understand that it's an offensive joke, nothing else. The argument that everyone is equally capable of leaving it at that, while it's laudable, is misguided and/or disingenuous. People use offensive words to bully other people. And it's not left behind in the playground; adults are equally capable of finding the "weak" one in the workplace and making their life hell. If that sounds elitist, so be it - there's some ignorant nasty bastards out there who love to have their bleak worldview validated by a popular comedian. They long for days-gone-by when you could call the special-needs guy a "spacca," before the "PC Brigade" took away their fun.

The defence of "if you don't like it, unfollow him" doesn't wash. I'm not on twitter but I'm aware of the debate. If a public figure says something, it ends up in the public domain. When Jim Shelley wrote that Gervais was "resting on his laurels," Gervais didn't shrug and stop buying the Mirror, he went on youTube to call Shelley a "fucking cunt." Jim Shelley, has the right to say what he wants, Gervais has the right to say he doesn't like it, and people who don't like the word "mong" have the right to say they don't like it. Freedom of speech doesn't begin and end with what Ricky Gervais wants to say.

Personally, I don't think Gervais intention is malicious - I just think he got it wrong, where another more skilled stand-up wouldn't have. The word "mong" obviously hasn't changed it's meaning as much as Gervais thought it had. For him to keep arguing that it has, is pointless. If the parents of disabled children, and disabled rights groups say it hasn't, then it self-evidently hasn't. He has the choice to keep on using it if he wants, but he can't pretend it's universally acceptable. I think he's taken it too far to admit he fucked up, and it would now be seen as a "defeat." As a comic who thinks he's up there with the best, able to manipulate language to a masterful degree, that would be an admission that he's not.

The reason it's tricky is because everyone *does* have the right to offend, if they see fit. You can't censor.

What you *can* do is call bullshit, loudly, when people attempt to contextualise and excuse their offensiveness in some cod-intellectual way, like Gervais is doing here.

He wasn't "making an interesting point about the mutability of language". He wanted to shock people by saying a nasty word and then giggle about it. And it's a word he thought he could get away with using because its target is a vulnerable constituency who don't have much of a voice.

It's not so much that he said it to shock. Sure, that's puerile and pathetic and rubbish. But it's more that he pretended to have some terribly clever justification which supposedly makes it all OK. Have the fucking courage of your convictions, man! Don't hide behind some postmodern figleaf! You wanted to be free to use a taboo word; fine. Accept you're going to get slated for it, and deal with it like a grown-up. You make a choice, you live with the (wholly foreseeable) consequences. You don't effectively call everyone who disagrees with you stupid and reactionary.

And let's not forget this gem of a tweet:

Dear fans
Don't give the haters any attention

Those people aren't really offended by the things I say- they are offended by my success.

Fuck. Off. You snivelling, disingenuous, arrogant little prick.

*breathes*

shouldn't this come under the unfunny comedians thread. He's my number 1 unfunny comedian, neck and neck with Boyle. I don't get him. At all. Smart alec bully.

say they are offended now, it seems to me less that they are offended by what has been said than they disagree and don’t like the supposed offence but like to feel offended.

My own attitude to this would be along the lines of ‘so what’ as well. I could well be wrong but if Stewart Lee says things along these lines or that he wants to kill the Top Gear presenters it’s all well and good. Not offensive at all. Or Chris Morris come to that.

People should try to be less offended by things comedians say and just, well, chill. Man.

an averagely intelligent radio producer given to making self-consciously 'whimsical' pronouncements.

Comics like irony because it is very easy to to say, "well, I know this is offensive but this is REALLY a meta-analysis of society's prejudices and dark secrets. And in my skit, I am shining a light on them" and at the same time it gives them a licence to say " let me tell you these jokes about gypos and spazzes, hur hur."

....I like 'An Idiot Abroad' after avoiding the first series because of the Gervais factor.

Went off Gervais when, in a one-page interview, he said he didn't like the blues, that 'you'll never believe this but I've never liked The Beatles' (which people who don't like The Beatles always say) and that he'd been in a new romantic band.

Cornered the market for knob-cheese royalty in one interview!

Still prefer him to Steven Fry though.

....Stephen Fry.

As far as I'm aware, no-one forced Warwick Davis into the frog suit. He's an actor. Promoting a new sitcom. That no-one forced him to appear in. And as far as I can see, he thinks the frog promo, and Gervais's response to it, is as funny as I do.

In his stand-up, Ricky Gervais is clearly inviting us to laugh at the attitude behind what is being said, not at the words themselves.

Sometimes Gervais gets it right, sometimes he doesn't. I think the Derek Noakes thing looks woeful. Maybe seeing the whole programme might be enlightening; I certainly hope so.

But do I think Gervais is some kind of maliciously misanthropic monster, hiding behind a clown's red nose? No.

The queue forms here to tell me why I'm a) wrong, b) gullible, or c) not welcome in these here parts, because I'm clearly just as big a bigot as he is.

because I don't consider your views bigoted. Reading up the post I think Illuminatus articulates my thoughts much more succinctly than I can myself. I have used derogatory words out of context and thus dont consider them bigoted since they are generally used at people fully able to defend themselves and never as a bullying tactic against people less able to do so. They are doubtless used ill-advisedly at times and I am sure have been used on occasion and regretted immediately thereafter. I have family members who have looked after their own downs syndrome children and know how difficult this is in a state where the support system is progressively disappearing.
To direct this subject to the question of whether Gervais intended to cause offence I cannot believe that anyone with a modicum of intelligence would want to do that. Regardless of whether we consider him to be funny or not it is clear he is fairly intelligent. My guess is that it is something that missed the mark and I dont think that is unusual in comedy. I just have to say by the way that I find the Idiot abroad series absolutely hilarious and not at all condescending, in fact before seeing the comments on here suggesting it was I hadnt even considered any implication. To me it was a light hearted take on the tired and 'seen it all before' genre of travel writing. I wonder if anyone considered the characters in Jerome K Jeromes three men in a boat to be thickos?
I can see that Gervais may be a bit of a prick but do I think he was being offensive? No more than he is when he is making gags about all sorts of other people. There doesnt seem to be anyone off limit. The only censorship should be to avoid giving him the oxygen of publicity.

and leaving aside whether Gervais is funny or not. I would put 'mong' in the same class as 'nigger'. There may well be occasions where the use by those not on the receiving end of it is justified. I'm pretty sure that a quick laugh doesn't really make the cut though.

My dad's mates send me emails as part of a group of people to receive them that includes other members of my family and various others. These are always the 'funnies' that get circulated at most places of work.
Some of these emails I find very funny and others I don't, much like the general world of comedy.
Then there are those that are offensive to me, jokes about AIDS, Asian women and other racist jokes. I don't like them and in the case of ones that mention Thai brides I detest being married to a Thai.
However, I will never pull them up on this as it won't change their attitudes and it won't stop them circulating them to the others. They will just cut me out of the receivers and our friendship will be slighly different when we meet up again.
And this is how I approach comedy in general, some I like, some I don't and some I find in poor taste for personal and moral reasons but unless the joke is being targeted at someone specific in the audience that would count as bullying I just choose not to watch it again. Comedy is far too subjective to get het up about and the chances are you will be laughing like a drain at someone else's idea of very poor taste.
As for Gervais in particular I liked the Office now I don't like the stuff he does and some of the stuff he says so I don't watch it while others will love it.
C'est la vie.

I just don't think Ricky Gervais is funny
His humour doesn't offend me but he just isn't particularly funny
The Office was OK but I haven't found anything else at all that he's done amusing - I do watch "An idiot abroad" purely for the travel show aspect of it.

and tv presenters are obsessed with Twitter.

...is also one of its best aspects: it gives just about everyone somewhere to voice their opinion. Far too often those opinions are of a negative bent - just read any comments section on any newspaper website: poorly-written rants at something or other are the norm. How very tiresome is the vast majority of user-generated Internet content. Including this bit.

If you don't like something - especially something as trivial as the use of a four-letter word - ignore it and move on. Stories like this and the related commentary, it seems to me, are simply an opportunity for people to voice their general dislike of the figure in question, not to add anything useful or constructive to the imagined debate.

As Bill Hicks said: 'I don't care what you think. No-one does.'

one of Bill's best lines thou, was it?

I saw him do a set at a benefit gig, where he made some very bad jokes about choosing a woman to rape. It was the point where a lot of the audience stopped laughing.

a Victims Of Rape benefit? Cos just might have been the wrong crowd for the material.

all entitled to our opinions.
Here is my angle on this.
Would Gervais use the N word?
No.
Why?
It's fucking offensive and he might get a deserved kicking.
Why does he use that word?
I have no idea.
All i know is that the people usually denoted by that equally vile term cannot defend themselves as well as others.
Double cunt!
(Someone tell him to lose the wanker uniform of black T-Shirt n jeans too)
Overrated one trick pony (OOAA-but just the last bit)

Other Opinions Are Available

FPO - Fun Prevention Officer
GLW - Good Lady Wife
HJH = Hey Jude Hitmakers (Beatles Band)

any others?

That Derek Noakes sketch was very poor indeed. It just didn't feel like it was coming from a good place.

Perhaps Mr Gervaise can't see that the idea of a multi-millionaire comic (or at least this particular multi-millionaire comic) 'playing' a man with learning difficulties might not sit right with a lot of folk.

As has been pointed out, he probably needs someone on his team to have the cajones to tell him when things are going wrong. The Derek Noakes thing is most certainly wrong.

TMFTL

as usual, has the answer.

Chubby little loser
National joke
Pathetic little fat man
No-one’s bloody laughing

the Pub Landlord character \ Al lines are pretty clearly drawn and he does very few "in character" interviews when he's not the person asking the questions. How his audience perceives this is a whole other debate

Gervais' attitude that people who have pulled him up on using the word "mong" are just jealous of his success and "haterz" is just pathetic.
To claim that "mong" doesn't mean people with learning disabilities or mental problems - "cos I don't think it means that anymore" is hokum of the top drawer variety

Whether you find Gervais funny or not is irrelevant. Its whether you believe that using "mong" as an insult for a cheap laugh is acceptable. Some say yes, some say no - well a split opinion there. Back to you, Chris.....

hopefully they do now.

in the sense of stoned out of your box has EVERYTHING to do with the original intent of the insult.

As it describes someone who is "monged out" as dribbling, incomprehensible mumbling speech, mentally impaired and unable to walk properly and function in general.

It doesn't matter if you dewscribe yourself as such its still using a rather tasteless insulting term.

That must have offended just about everyone at different points. Still, it was very funny. Or was it.

in regard to this thread, is how many people didn't like Gervais' all along but never mentioned it till now - it's one helluva coincidence.

Offence is – obviously - entirely subjective and it strikes me that any comedian making a living is inevitably going to offend people. And I think they have a right to offend people, just as people have a right to be offended by things. I’m not convinced that the fact that people are offended is reason enough not to say things; we can’t censor or censure just because of offence, not least because offence is an emotional response, not a rational one.

It strikes me that when someone causes offence, you need to look at that person and consider what it says about them. You might learn that they are just naïve, with no idea that something was offensive, or you might see someone who is happy to attack the vulnerable or minorities, simply because they can. The likes of Davidson and Manning probably fell into this latter group. You might also find people who are offensive for a purpose – because they want to make a point. Richard Herring and Stewart Lee have both done this recently, musing quite seriously on religion, and causing offence among some Christians. Reginald D Hunter also walks this line, though my impression is that at times his broad-brush approach is a little closer to Jim Davidson than is comfortable. Which proves the point - offence can be justifiable, but you need to make sure of this before you cause it.

Ricky Gervais has made a career out of exploring what makes something offensive, teetering on the brink of unpleasantness to reflect and caricature the modern day confusion over what one should and shouldn’t say. Part of this has always involved characters saying or doing awful things. Looking at the likes of Extras, The Office and his stand-up, it strikes me as clear that he’s attempting to say something intelligent and observant and is happy to risk offence in doing so.

With ‘Mong-gate’, I see the same intentions as before, but they now seem to be coupled to an arrogance which, whether real or part of an assumed persona, have given him an air of self-righteousness he doesn’t deserve. He believes he’s right, but he’s gauged interpretation of the word poorly and has no moral stance to fall back on. He won’t admit to making a mistake and is instead galvanising his fanbase into supporting him in a vain attempt to retrospectively redefine the word.

I’d like to think he’ll realise the negative influence he’s had and address it, but it looks unlikely. Which is a shame because I’ve enjoyed pretty much everything he’s done, and I’m certainly intrigued by Life’s too Short.

1 I think The Office is a brilliant susained piece of comedy.

2 The Derek Noakes piece is so pityfully unfunny that I have trouble believing that it's not a wind up.

3 If Ricky Gervaise woke up as a dwarf tomorrow and somebody (who was waving the chance of fame and a lot of money in front of him) asked him to dress up as a frog for his amusement, I wonder how he'd feel.

navigated this 'uncomfortable' territory with far greater aplomb than his acolyte, e.g. with the scenes where he and Richard Lewis 'help a blind guy':

RG's recent 'output' doesn't come close.

here's Gervais in Curb. I assume this must be on over here very shortly. Can't believe he manages to plug Extras on another show - the man has a talent for marketing himself...

from Robin Ince, who being both mates with RG and a thoroughly decent chap has a dual stake in this episode.

http://robinince.wordpress.com/2011/10/21/will-someone-rid-me-of-this-tu...

that Herring has recieved over the past few days from Gervais' fans he might realiae that not everyone understands his persona and post ironic view of the world.

He's not responsible for them as an artist but it wouldn't hurt if he broke the 4th wall to make his intentions clear.

for all the abuse he's received this week before Gervais' alleged apology then he is continuing to raise money for SCOPE as he has done at all his stand up shows over the past few years by running the Royal Parks Half Marathon

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/RichardHerring

certainly, but I don't think there was any malicious intent - here's his response, including an apology:

http://nickyclark.blogspot.com/2011/10/when-nicky-met-ricky.html

More evidence of the evil dwarfism (is that the right phrase?) that Ricky Gervais inflicts upon poor Warwick Davis. That Ian Wright at the end has the right idea, though.

... with responses to Ricky Gervais which take the lazy option of assuming that he must be some sort of obnoxious idiot, because that's how he conducts himself on TV or on stage. It's extremely tiresome, and it feels very much like a lot of it boils down to people finding reasons to justify their dislike of him*.

I enjoy a lot of his stuff, particularly 'The Office' and 'Extras'. Some of it I'm less keen on. I'd say I appreciated it without being in awe of him as a comic talent, let's put it that way. And I can't imagine how he'd have got anywhere near where he is today if he'd been anything like his on-screen persona - people just wouldn't tolerate it. You'd get a few who were happy to indulge him as a result of his success, but he wouldn't be anything like as successful and respected as he is, I'm quite sure. Add to that the occasions I've seen or heard him being interviewed where he's not in a 'light entertainment' kind of context, and he's clearly a very different sort of person. I do genuinely believe he's been quite naive over the 'mong' controversy - I like to think I'm reasonably intelligent and sensitive to what might offend people, and it's never really crossed my mind that it would still have that kind of power as a potential term of offence.

As for 'Life's Too Short', I think it's quite offensive to Warwick Davis to suggest that this is 'Ricky Gervais making cheap jokes about dwarves'. Me and my girlfriend met Warwick Davis earlier in the year, and he was an absolute delight. And he and his family seemed genuinely excited and enthusiastic about the programme - particularly because the initial idea was his. He was pulling out his phone and showing us publicity pics he'd been sent, and talking about it animatedly. You can be cynical if you like, but the way he was talking about it, I cannot imagine that this is something he'd have done if he felt the he was 'the fall guy', and that it would compromise his dignity in taking this role, even if it would be undeniably lucrative working with Gervais and Merchant.

* No reason why they'd need to justify anything, of course, it's perfectly all right not to find a particular comedian funny, no matter how popular or revered they are. I find Bill Hicks a terrible waste of space, purely because his material just didn't appeal to me. I wish it did.

Richard makes an interesting point. Gervais and his supporters claimed that "mong" didn't mean someone who was mentally handicapped \ deficient etc.

Francesca Martinez, an actress who appeared in Extras, is "wobbly" (her own term for cerebal palsy) and when she spoke out against what RG had done she got abuse along the lines of "people only know who you are cos Ricky cast you in Extras" ignoring the Tv and stage work she's done for years before. Herring got constant -"Fuck off you, mong" messages. Not one person called Francesca a "mong". Maybe cos they knew that's exactly what it means and always has done in whatever context you use it.

Gervais was a dick for what he did and his initial response and petulance says a lot about him. Whether he's not really like that and a nice guy I don't know. I've heard stories when he is a complete big headed knob at social events and not playing to any cameras. There are plenty of successful people who are complete arseholes but they are indulged by the community they work in cos a) they are a meal ticket and b) they are creative so its to be expected.

People who aren't at the recieving end of insults like mong never think that those words have power as they are not the target.

This seemed a bit rushed out or something, as if on a salvage mission pointedly taking time out to say "Its not controversial honest!" and Ricky looked quite uncomfortable, as if the interviews were filmed during the Mong furore.

It's biggest problem still looks like being the weakness of the writing. I still can't get over the idea that the highlight gag seems to be Warwick not being able to reach a doorbell.

If we were replacing the word 'mong' with some racist term (which I will not use here) then Gervais would have no hiding place nor would he if he used 'faggot' or 'queer' either.

Disabled people have had to put up with so much crap and it seems that it is still okay to abuse us. Gervais' comment about it 'not being about disabled people' is bollocks in my opinion.

Comedy is all about offending people, I accept that and if someone makes a point about a disabled person (or the perception of disabled people in the world) then that is okay. The Warwick Davis joke about not being able to reach the door bell is actually quite clever as society does not cater for disabled people per se. I doubt Gervais was making a valid point about how society disables people and not there impairments but it did highlight it and it was quite funny.

What is not acceptable is using lazy and offensive language like 'mong'. When I was a kid I got called 'mong' because I couldn't do PE (including from the Games Master) and it wasn't great for the ole self confidence.

Thankfully these terms have fallen out of general usage and Gervais' attempt to 'reclaim' them is just crap. There is nothing to reclaim except being offensive and hurtful.

Indeed, for years I shared a flat with his agent, who's been Ricky's agent since way before he was famous. He's always funny, polite and courteous, if a little guarded around strangers since he became such a well-known face (who wouldn't be?)

For example, I happened to spend some time with him the weekend before the second series of the Office was due to air - remember it was series two that really went mental in terms of profile - and said he must be excited about the new series and the fact that it had a really good slot, right after season two of I'm Alan Partridge (930/10pm, I seem to remember.) He was genuinely nervous about it and expressed that he thought the audience might get 'comedied out' and The Office could suffer because of it. His fears turned out to be unfounded.

I've chatted with him since on many occasions and he's always been nothing but polite and engaging. The mega-famous are always an easy target, though, aren't they? I've met Bono (clang!) a few times, too, and he was always lovely, would you believe?

Only just seen his thread.

I felt that the "making of" programme on the other day was extremely encouraging. From the clips seen to date it looks to be a real blast with Warwick taking on the standard Ricky G nasty but nice character that he normally plays himself. looks like a Similar set of self put down cameos from Helena Bony C and Johnny Depp that made extras so special too.

I've gone off Ricky G's output of late. His bloody twitter feed is the dullest thing ever. Mostly just a series of retweets from people who've sent him abusive messages. Unfollowed him after about a week. (I think celebrity retweeting should be banned.)

Carl Pilkington was funny for about three hours then it got boring, then it got lazy. How come the office only had 12 episodes when there seems to be no constraints to Carl Pilkington?

of Life Is Short and really enjoyed it. It fell short of Ricky's earlier TV work, that's true, but it was still better than most current television comedy.

The scene with Liam Neeson was brilliantly written and performed though and I felt it was right up there with Extras.

tired and weak. Not up to the usual standards. Certainly not the worst comedy on the TV but disappointing considering the previous Gervais/Marchant offerings.

is 'meh'!!?

and thought that Warwick Davis was playing himself as David Brent.It did make me laugh though so i'll persevere.