Forget Cleggy and co for a second - it’s a big week for comedy. In Manchester - at the MEN Arena, where he once worked as a steward - Peter Kay is unveiling his first stand-up show in seven years. In London, Ricky Gervais is back at Wembley Arena . Politicians can but dream of holding rallies of this size, night after night.
It’s hard not to think about all the money flowing into the stars’ bank accounts without going green with envy. And yet one of the main reasons, surely, why people flock to gigs of this magnitude, is tobask in all that unobtainable affluence. There’s something so incongruous about a bloke standing on stage in front of thousands - a blurred speck were it not for the giant screens relaying every move -that the scale of the achievement is as much a part of the experience as the comedy. And few make more of this than Gervais.
It’s hard not to think about all the money flowing into the stars’ bank accounts without going green with envy. And yet one of the main reasons, surely, why people flock to gigs of this magnitude, is tobask in all that unobtainable affluence. There’s something so incongruous about a bloke standing on stage in front of thousands - a blurred speck were it not for the giant screens relaying every move -that the scale of the achievement is as much a part of the experience as the comedy. And few make more of this than Gervais.
The London leg of his Science tour finds the braggart creator of TheOffice and Extras etc, etc largely replicating the show he firstpresented in Edinburgh last August, with the odd tweak and insertion.
Once again, though, he appears content to coast on his reputation, andeven abuse the power that comes with celebrity, rather than push histalents in new directions.
Lookingly weirdly like George Michael, thanks to an unfetching moustache, and dosed up on pain-killers as a result of golfing-related back-strain, Gervais displays characteristic chutzpah by opening with a confession that he’s not bothered about playing Wembley: “I’ve got better things to do than this,” he says, eyeing his watch - this, we’re told, is “a warm-up for Madison Square Garden”.
I laughed at that, but we’re soon enough cast into the re-heated slurry of minor provocation and knowing obnoxiousness. There are over-generous helpings of material about fat people, rounded off with a bilious description of a Ken Dodd fan: “I’m trying to avoid saying 'fat mental bird’,” he tells us, all smirking disingenuousness.
There are playground barbs about Amanda Holden and Susan Boyle - who looks “like a mong” - and contemptuous reflections on repellent autograph-hunters. For the atheists, there’s a caustic deconstruction of a children’s picture-book about Noah. For the bawdy-minded, there are numerous knob-gags.
Gervais has a style that’s at once plaintive and relaxed, which works well, but the substance is missing. The woman in front of me spent the entire show with her head on her partner’s shoulder with a “wake me up when it’s over” look about her. At least she’ll be able to say she was there, though.
Once again, though, he appears content to coast on his reputation, andeven abuse the power that comes with celebrity, rather than push histalents in new directions.
Lookingly weirdly like George Michael, thanks to an unfetching moustache, and dosed up on pain-killers as a result of golfing-related back-strain, Gervais displays characteristic chutzpah by opening with a confession that he’s not bothered about playing Wembley: “I’ve got better things to do than this,” he says, eyeing his watch - this, we’re told, is “a warm-up for Madison Square Garden”.
I laughed at that, but we’re soon enough cast into the re-heated slurry of minor provocation and knowing obnoxiousness. There are over-generous helpings of material about fat people, rounded off with a bilious description of a Ken Dodd fan: “I’m trying to avoid saying 'fat mental bird’,” he tells us, all smirking disingenuousness.
There are playground barbs about Amanda Holden and Susan Boyle - who looks “like a mong” - and contemptuous reflections on repellent autograph-hunters. For the atheists, there’s a caustic deconstruction of a children’s picture-book about Noah. For the bawdy-minded, there are numerous knob-gags.
Gervais has a style that’s at once plaintive and relaxed, which works well, but the substance is missing. The woman in front of me spent the entire show with her head on her partner’s shoulder with a “wake me up when it’s over” look about her. At least she’ll be able to say she was there, though.
