Ricky Gervais

Ricky Gervais (born June 25, 1961) is an English comic writer and performer from Reading, Berkshire, England. Gervais achieved mainstream fame with his award-winning BBC2 television programme The Office, which he co-wrote and co-directed with long-time friend and collaborator Stephen Merchant. Besides writing and directing the show, Gervais played the lead role of David Brent. In 2005, Gervais returned to BBC Television with his new sitcom, Extras. In 2006, Gervais became the first guest star on The Simpsons to also write an episode, which aired March 26, 2006.

Childhood

He grew up in Whitley, on a council estate.

Career

Seona Dancing

He was also the lead singer of the New Romantic group Seona Dancing. The group released two singles that failed to break the top 40 in the UK: "Bitter Heart", and "More To Lose", which became a massive hit in the Philippines in 1985. This came as a great surprise to the band, who had actually broken up the previous year.

Radio

After various odd jobs, including working in an office, a stint as events manager at the University of London Union followed in the early 1990s. Through this, Gervais went on to briefly manage the British rock group Suede in their pre-record contract days before taking a job at London radio station XFM in 1996, though he was made redundant when the station was taken over by the Capital Radio group in 1998. He was also music advisor for the popular BBC drama This Life at this time thanks to the show's producer Jane Fallon. It was during his time at XFM that he met Stephen Merchant, who would later become his collaborator in much of his later work.

Gervais returned to XFM for a Saturday afternoon radio show that first went on the air in November 2001 and ran intermittently until January 2004 with breaks ranging between 1-3 months between new shows. After that, Gervais took 18 months off to work on his new television show Extras, write Flanimals, and perform his live show Politics. He returned to the airwaves on 28 May 2005 to host the show once again with Karl Pilkington and Stephen Merchant. 48 episodes of the radio show are archived at xfm.co.uk/ricky.

Television

Gervais' mainstream TV debut came in September 1998 as part of Channel 4's "Comedy Lab" series of pilots. His one-off show, "Golden Years", focused on a David Bowie-obsessed character called Clive Meadows. He then came to much wider national attention with an obnoxious, cutting persona featured in a topical slot which replaced Ali G's segments on the satirical Channel 4 comedy programme The 11 O'Clock Show in early 1999. Gervais later went on to present his own comedy chat show for Channel 4 called Meet Ricky Gervais two years later which was poorly received and has since been mocked by Gervais himself.

Throughout this time, Gervais also wrote for Bruiser, the long-lost BBC sketch show, and cameoed in Simon Pegg's sitcom Spaced. A home-made pilot for The Office, made with Xfm cohort Stephen Merchant, surfaced in 1999/2000, and was bought up by the BBC. After that, Extras first aired from 21 July 2005 with an appearance by Ben Stiller. It features cameos from Patrick Stewart, Kate Winslet (who is also from Reading), Ross Kemp, Les Dennis and Samuel L Jackson. Gervais's main character, Andy Millman, is more self-aware and intentionally humorous than David Brent, and the programme has not been made in the style of a mockumentary, as was The Office (although it is filmed in a similar style without a laughter track).

Stand Up

Gervais also toured the UK in 2003 with his stand-up show Animals. The Politics tour then followed a year later. Both of these shows were recorded for release on DVD and television broadcast. The third part of the themed live trilogy, Science, will hit the road in 2006.

Books

Gervais released a children's book in 2004, entitled Flanimals. After the success of this book, he released its sequel More Flanimals in 2005.

External links

• RickyGervais.com Official Site