Meet Ricky Gervais
| Meet Ricky Gervais | |
|---|---|
| Genre |
Talk show Comedy |
| Developed by | Talkback Thames |
| Written by |
Ricky Gervais Jimmy Carr Robin Ince Stephen Merchant |
| Directed by | Ian Lorimer |
| Presented by | Ricky Gervais |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 6 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Peter Fincham |
| Producer(s) | Iain Morris |
| Running time | 30 min per episode |
| Release | |
| Original network | Channel 4 |
| Original release | 22 September – 27 October 2000 |
Meet Ricky Gervais is a talk show written and hosted by the English comedian Ricky Gervais. It was produced by Talkback for Channel 4 in 2000 (repeated 2003) and ran for one series on Friday nights.
The show aired throughout the time Ricky Gervais was also writing the first series of the highly successful The Office for BBC2.
Overview
Guests were supposedly interviewed by Gervais in the original TV studio chairs of famous people. Gervais was seated in Michael Aspel's Aspel & Co leather chair and guests seated in Ronnie Corbett's monologue chair, and Grandad from Only Fools and Horses' armchair. The guests included John Virgo, Tommy Walsh, Michael Winner, Wayne Hemingway, Paul Daniels, Tony Hart, Penny Smith and Jimmy Savile.
The show regularly featured darts assistant, Tony Green, who would take his place as the general stooge and gameshow assistant. On the first episode, Gervais claimed that Green came free with the original Bullseye dartboard, which he supposedly found himself whilst building the rest of the set.
Also, the show did not have a theme tune so at the end of each show, Gervais asked viewers to record and send in their own mixes. Few were received. Two of the episodes used a theme tune co-written and performed by Stewart Ferris and Emma Burgess.
Production notes
The series was produced by Iain Morris and co-written by Jimmy Carr and Robin Ince with additional material provided by Stephen Merchant and Stirling Gallacher (VT clock voiceover).
Reception
Gervais admits that this show was an embarrassment and it has since been mocked even by Gervais himself. He was quoted as saying that there was no second series as Channel 4 wanted to see some changes, "ratings mainly". Commenting on the difficulties of securing guests Gervais stated that "either they'd heard of me or they hadn't. Either way it was a problem".
"It was a mistake to use my own name", he says now. "I thought people would understand that I was playing a character. I should have called myself Billy Bigot. Some people really did seem to think that I thought famine was a good thing, and so on."[1]
References
- ↑ Telegraph (9 February 2002). "Class of 2002 - Ricky Gervais". London: telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 2010-04-12.