Ricky Gervais Live 3 - Fame (DVD)

So, after brilliant success for The Office sitcom and the follow up plaudits for Extras, Ricky Gervais has decided to cash in between his multi award winning sitcoms with stand-up shows. He's too rich and important to have to do tiring multi-venue tours around the country to make a buck so just cherry picks the capitals grandest theatres for three or four packed houses to make a mint instead. Because Ricky's a world-wide star he can play where he wants and say what he wants, much of it near the knuckle, some of it viciously cruel. Nothing wrong with that in the right context but to me, watching this, though, it feels like a talent getting self-indulgent and too big for ...  Read the complete review

I love Ricky Gervaise doing stand up, I was never mad keen on The Office but he's always been proper funny when it's just him on a stage telling his rambling and proper funny jokes and stories. I loved Animals so when I saw Fame was on TV last night I thought I'd wait up and watch it even though I wanted an early night. I wish I hadn't bothered afterwards as the show was a long way from his best. A lot of his anecdotes he's said before and there wasn't that much new material once you've took all the older jokes out, it's all well put together and runs smooth but a lot of it just isn't funny. He's got a mad dig on fat people in this show and is ...  Read the complete review

The other night, this was on the telly on channel 4 and, having watched both his other two stand-up shows before (ANIMALS and POLITICS) and having found them both reasonably funny, I thought I might as well give this a go. Of his three shows this is without doubt the weakest and, 24 hours later, I am left kind of wondering why I really bothered sitting down to watch this. Much of it was in bad taste with only the odd comic moment and, in fact, the show has very much left me feeling almost dirty with it's ill choice of humour. Now don't get me wrong- I'm no prude and I like a sick joke as much as anyone. Well I remember the jokes that emerged after the death of ...  Read the complete review

As well as writing and appearing in such great comedies as The Office and Extras Ricky Gervais also does a stand up act and Fame is the third of these performances to be released on DVD, I saw it last night on E4 and it was very funny indeed. On stage Gervais is not a joke teller like Peter Kay rather he picks a theme and then talks about it, recounting anecdotes and making observations, his comedy style is to be rather risky and to push the boundaries of what people find acceptable to talk about, he takes you out of your comfort zone in a sardonic and then apologetic manner, as if what he has said was not intended but a slip of the tongue. This ...  Read the complete review

Ricky Gervais, comic genius behind 'The Office' and 'Extras' returns for his third stand up tour DVD, titled 'fame'. There are two sides to Ricky Gervais - one which I love and one which I hate, and both appear in this DVD. The Gervais I love uses facial gesture, movement and high pitched voices to poke fun at himself, and does so in such a humble and gentle way that it's very non threatening and amiable. You can't help but like the guy when he's making fun of himself, or any topic, in this way. There are some jokes about Dawn French (in which he also implicates himself) that are typical of this style of good fun humour. The Gervais I hate is the ...  Read the complete review