Ricky Gervais created two of TV’s greatest comedies. But his standup is slipping

2 months ago 5

You will not find in this reviewer a Ricky Gervais hater.

The man created two of the all-time greatest TV comedies in The Office and Extras, and another very good – albeit tending to the syrupy – one in Afterlife. His early standup specials, too, displayed a great and almost unexpected talent. His last few one-man shows, though, have displayed diminishing returns, as Gervais, comfortable with his millions and his status, has cycled through the same moves repeatedly: lectures on freedom of speech, explainers on atheism, and gleeful rehashes of how many people complain about what he says. Being funny hadn’t been removed from his repertoire, but it did seem to have slipped a few rungs down his ladder of priorities.

His new Netflix special, Mortality, doesn’t begin promisingly on this score, as he steps immediately into an observation on the success of his previous shows in the face of those much-mentioned complainers. One can certainly understand a man being smug about the fact that his success has been not only immune to the cries of the haters, but has actually seemed to benefit from them – but comedy generally benefits from not making your smugness so very naked in your performance.

Ricky Gervais’ Netflix special ‘Mortality’ premiered on Tuesday.

About 20 minutes in, Gervais explains what this show is about and what he’s trying to do with it, and this is a neat encapsulation of what his problem is when it comes to standup.

It’s not that he’s offensive – a willingness to offend is often a vital tool in a comedian’s kitbag. It’s not that many find his entire persona, his whole schtick, insufferable – every artist will be loathed by someone. Gervais’s issue is rather his weakness for interrupting the jokes to lecture explicitly on what he reckons, to be so inflamed by his opinions that he can’t stand the thought of anyone being in any doubt as to what they are.

It’s a self-indulgent streak akin to those developed by many comics as they become wealthy and successful and comfortable – as this is a condition Gervais achieved before he even began doing standup, it’s not surprising he’s fallen victim, and fallen hard. Not content with making jokes about atheism, free speech or irritating online scolds, he needs to footnote the gags with mini-TED talks on his subjects.

Fortunately, Mortality is far from all condescension. In fact, for long stretches Gervais shows the flair for profane, fatalistic riffing that made him the big deal he is. If self-indulgence is his great weakness, his great strength is his absence of anger, the big grin that stays intact throughout.

He may overestimate the extent to which the public wishes to know what he thinks about everything under the sun, but he remains quite eager to take the piss out of himself as well. The quality that has always prevented Gervais from becoming his greatest invention, David Brent, has always been self-awareness, and he hasn’t lost it – entirely – yet.

Mortality is at its best when Gervais isn’t elaborating philosophies, but relaxing into conversational style, albeit a more foul-mouthed and impolite conversation than you might be used to.

For someone who clearly loves to see himself as a groundbreaking iconoclast, he actually excels the most when he’s lapsing into more conventional standup mode. Sequences on irritating holiday experiences and the obsessions of ageing, some rather disgusting observations on The Exorcist, and a quite refreshing observation on the concept of “not caring what other people think” are shining moments. Really huge belly laughs are few, but chuckles are plentiful.

Unfortunately, he lapses, in the end, back into self-obsession and a repeated insistence that this show – not a particularly different set from his last few – is his “most personal”. Mortality is not a misfire, but it disappoints by being just more of the same from a great comic who’s let his edge go.

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