A Spectacular Misfire From Ricky Gervais – Derek Review

When Ricky Gervais returned to Twitter last year, he did so by posting a series of photos of himself posing as what he described as a ‘mong’.  It wasn’t big and it wasn’t clever, and he soon found himself in a bit of bother, as many people objected to his use of the word and its connotations with regards to people with learning difficulties.  Although he at first tried to bat away any criticism, he eventually apologised and appeared to move on.

Unfortunately he moved on to the dreadful Life’s Too Short, the third sitcom he’s created with writing partner Stephen Merchant, about Warwick Davis’ life as a celebrity dwarf about town.  It was a complete mess, lacking in laughs and relying on forced celebrity cameos, most of which didn’t even directly involve Davis, who was supposed to be the lead actor in the show.  Ratings for the show dropped over its 7 episodes, with Gervais taking to Twitter to defend it, claiming that ‘haters’ were out to get him.  His fall from grace continued with his weak hosting of this year’s Golden Globe awards, which was tame and predictable after he’d shocked everyone with a savage (but importantly very funny) routine last year.

His latest project is Derek, described as a comedy-drama, in which he plays the titular character, who appears to have learning difficulties.  It also stars Karl Pilkington, the former producer of Gervais’ XFM radio show, who shot to fame after Gervais started podcasting, allowing Pilkington to air his outlandish and crazed sounding thoughts on almost everything.  The trailers for it are hardly inspiring, in fact they make the show look like a disaster in the making, so it is not something that I’ve approached with excitement.

And here’s the worrying thing, Derek is actually much worse than I could have imagined.  Unless it’s a very clever joke, Gervais has tried to make something poignant and touching, but it’s such a horrific misfire that he really should come out and tell everyone that it was a prank.

Derek works in a retirement home, where he’s nice to the people living there, and makes Hannah (Kerrie Godliman) who runs the home laugh.  He’s friends with Douglas (Karl Pilkington), who likes to moan.  Derek is played out as a documentary, a format Gervais has of course explored before, but there’s literally nothing about the show that will draw you in like The Office did.  It’s a laboured exercise, with Gervais trying to show that he can act and has depth, but the program plays out with a series of clichés and is never funny or touching or sweet.

Douglas is basically just Karl being Karl, albeit in a ridiculous wig.  If you’ve listened to their podcasts or watched An Idiot Abroad, you’ll know how much Gervais enjoys annoying Karl, and that’s what Derek does to Douglas, whether it’s asking him who’d win out of a ‘suicide bomber and a shark’, or setting Douglas off on a rant about letting old people just die instead of trying to fix them all the time (again, this is something covered extensively in their podcasts), it’s familiar ground, with the only difference being Gervais is in character and Karl is wearing glasses.

The incidental music throughout the program is grating too, with heartstring plucking piano music over most of it, trying to make everything seem oh so tragic and moving.  But it never is, and instead you’ll just feel patronized if you have the misfortune of watching Derek, with Gervais holding your hand as he signposts the moments when you’re supposed to laugh and when you’re supposed to cry or be moved by what’s happening on screen.

But the show just isn’t funny at all, it’s not clever and it’s not moving.  Gervais doesn’t cover much new terrority in Derek either.  When a new arrival is shown around, Hannah takes a shine to her son Tom, and she later asks Derek to find out if he’s gay or not, by asking what TV shows and films he likes.  Derek gets confused, and blurts out that Hannah wants to know if he is gay or not, and it’s a reminder of the kind of social awkwardness that’s always been a feature of Gervais’ work.  You’ll recognise the moment from Darren’s date with Maggie in Extras, or the infamous Brent dance in The Office, but it just doesn’t ring true, especially when it’s made clear that Tom suddenly fancies Hannah and comes to the home to see her and not his mum.

The show ends with Joan, a woman Derek is closer to than the others, dying.  This gives Gervais a chance to show off his acting chops, which he does by crying a bit and looking all sad and that.  It’s a desperate move, and one which requires little effort on Gervais’ part.  It rather sums up the whole sorry half hour.  Whatever Gervais wanted Derek to be, it isn’t.  It’s not funny, it’s not moving and it doesn’t make you think.  He’s claimed that it’s a comment on Britain today, but it’s really just a failed experiment from a man struggling to maintain the success of his recent past.

I’m absolutely certain Ricky Gervais will take to Twitter and the media to rant that people just didn’t get it and that he is proud of Derek, but I don’t think anyone will be listening.

@TheGlassCase

Life’s Too Short – Episode 7

So it’s finally over.  Life’s Too Short limped to a depressing end that finished with Warwick Davis sleeping in a drawer.  Why?  Because he’s a dwarf, so he fits!  Funny eh?  No, definitely not.

I enjoyed episode 1 of Life’s Too Short.  There were some good lines, and a very funny, if shoe-horned in, cameo by Liam Neeson.  But the show got repetitive and tedious very quickly.  The cameos became more bizarre and out of place, and there were continuations of long-running gags from the world of Ricky Gervais.  Stephen Merchant is tight with money, Ricky and Steve Carrel have a rivalry, Les Dennis, Keith Chegwin and Barry off Eastenders appeared for no real reason.  Even Keith from The Office turned up.

Life’s Too Short will go down as Ricky Gervais’ first real failure.  Warwick Davis’ character felt like a cross between Andy Millman and David Brent, only he rarely learned lessons from his mistakes, and usually came across as an arrogant bully, rather than a misguided but decent person at heart.  I feel sorry for Davis actually, as his performance throughout the series was generally pretty good, but he was never allowed to be the star of his own show.  His life as a once successful actor, going through a divorce and running a struggling talent agency always felt like background noise, as the show concentrated on getting celebrities to send themselves up, you know, like what they did in Extras.

Episode 5 for me was a highlight, because there was no Gervais or Merchant, and no celebrity cameos.  Just Warwick and his life, but the final two episodes were extraordinarily bad.  Episode 7 begins with another meeting between Warwick and his accountant/solicitor and his wife Sue and her solicitor Ian.  When Ian tells Warwick that Sue gave up her career as a nurse for him, he rants about there being enough nurses to go round, and that Brad Pitt wouldn’t marry a nurse.  The divorce settlement offered to him is not favourable, so he inexplicably visits Ricky and Stephen (who have repeatedly made it clear they want nothing to do with him) to beg for some money.  They can’t give him any, but talk turns to a charity event Sting is hosting, that Ricky has been invited to.  During this exchange, Ricky jokes about Stephen being tight with money, something that has featured heavily in their radio shows and podcasts.

Warwick somehow persuades Ricky to ask Sting if he can go to the event.  Warwick later receives a standard letter from Sting, inviting him to the event, with tickets costing £300.  After writing a cheque, Warwick visits his accountant, who tells him that he needs to cut back on his spending.  He wonders aloud if Warwick would be better off dead, which leads to a discussion about suicide, rather like the one with Chegwin, Dennis and Shaun Williamson in the previous episode.

You won’t be surprised to learn that the charity event doesn’t go well for Warwick.  One reason is that it’s a typical of Gervais and Merchant’s shows that things don’t always go according to plan, another is that almost every episode has ended with a ‘coming soon’ scene during the end credits, which has shown Warwick being thrown out of the event with Sting looking on.

The Office and Extras both ended well for their lead characters.  David Brent got the girl and beat Finchy, and Andy Millman realised who he really was, and left with his friend Maggie.  Life’s Too Short ends with Warwick in a drawer, improbably reconciling with Amy, the girl he has twice humiliated publicly.  It rather sums up the show.  Life’s Too Short has felt like a poorly written mash-up of The Office and Extras, like it was written by someone ripping off Ricky Gervais, rather than by the actual creators of both those shows.  While those shows will long be a staple of clip shows and comedy countdowns, Life’s Too Short will hopefully be quietly put away, perhaps in the bottom of a drawer?

Life’s Too Short – Episode 6

Episode 5 of Life’s Too Short was the best of the series so far.  With no Gervais or celebrity cameos, it allowed Warwick Davis to carry the show himself, and he showed himself capable of doing it.  If that episode was a peak, episode 6 is certainly a trough.  The episode is an ugly mess, with utterly redundant cameos, and repeats of themes from Extras.  Les Dennis, Keith Chegwin and Barry off Eastenders appear for no reason at all, other to have an entirely unfunny conversation about how they’d kill themselves, or be sick in the background at a party gone wrong.  I know they have nothing better to do, but surely Ricky Gervais does?

Gervais and Merchant are back too, as Warwick attempts to get them to attend a flat-warming party he’s hosting.  What we get is a variation on the old ‘Whatever day it is, I can’t go’ gag, as Gervais claims he visits Great Ormond Street Hospital on Saturday nights.  When he tries to get Merchant to attend, we’re ‘treated’ to another tired routine, Ricky thinking Steve is a bit funny looking.  It’s something that listeners to their old XFM shows, and series of podcasts, will be well familiar with.

Anyway, after failing to attract any of the Harry Potter cast (He calls Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson, who decline, but he tells Rupert Grint that there is no party), he turns to a rent-a-star agency, and hires Cat Deeley.  Deeley has little to do when she arrives at the party.  She doesn’t want to talk about Ant and Dec, or I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, and finds herself in the middle of a rumour (started by Warwick) that she and Davis are dating.

This scenario gives the show it’s one real highlight, Sue’s solicitor, Ian.  Played by Matthew Holness (better known as Garth Marenghi), he’s dating Sue and goes out of his way to annoy and embarrass Warwick.  Earlier in the episode, as Sue and Warwick meet to discuss their divorce, Ian slides a first draft of a divorce agreement just out of Warwick’s reach, an little act that eventually leads to Warwick and his accountant (acting as a solicitor) falling out and eventually fighting on the floor.  At the party, Ian goes out of his way to rile Warwick, without raising his voice or being overly demonstrative.  He claims not to have a television so doesn’t recognise Deeley, and sticks Warwick right in it, when he tells Amy (Warwick’s date in episode 5) that he’s been told Warwick and Deeley are dating, then loudly asks Deeley about the same rumour.

It’s a subtle performance by Holness, but his increasingly hostile relationship with Warwick is something that doesn’t get enough air-time, due to Gervais and Merchant’s insistence on cramming pointless cameos and themselves into the show.  There’s literally no point whatsoever in the trio of Dennis, Chegwin and Williamson being at Warwick’s party.  How do they know each other?  Why would he invite them?  On Twitter this week, Gervais claimed to have ideas for a second series of Life’s Too Short.  It’s a pity he didn’t have any new ones for this series.  The Office and Extras are genuinely classic sitcoms, but Gervais should have moved on with his career.  Cemetery Junction was a well-received drama, and An Idiot Abroad was an entertaining travelogue, making Karl Pilkington a TV star.  I still believe that Warwick Davis gives a decent performance in Life’s Too Short, but the sooner it’s over with, the better.