Ricky Gervais: Animals - Live

Starring: Ricky Gervais, Stirling Gallacher Director: Dominic Brigstocke Original UK Premiere: 2003 Dvd Release: 17th November, 2003 Number Of Discs: 1 Format: PAL, Region 2 Encoding

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Ricky Gervais is a comic writer & performer who grew up in the English town of Reading. Gervais has recently enjoyed success with his award-winning BBC2 television programme The Office, which he co-wrote with Stephen Merchant. As well as writing it, Gervais also played the lead role of David Brent, an office manager who believes he is popular & funny, but is in fact neither. Gervais father grew up in French Canada & came to the UK on duty during the Second World War, where he met his wife. Raised as the youngest of four brothers, Ricky Gervais has described his childhood as nice & normal. Gervais went to UCL in 1985 to study Philosophy. During the early 1980s Gervais was 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. However, in 1985 their track More To Lose became a massive hit in the Philippines. This came as a great surprise to the band, which had broken up the previous year.

Remarkably for someone who doesnt claim to be either an actor or a professional stand-up comic, Ricky Gervais has now triumphed in both fields. Animals Live is his one-man show at Londons Bloomsbury Theatre during which the star of The Office presents a lecture on the animal kingdom in a shameless bid to inherit David Attenboroughs mantle, since the old boy is getting on a bit & cant last forever. The subject is loose & broad enough to allow for plenty of digressions & amiable ramblings about sex, childhood, war and, of course, more sex.

Theres something of Eddie Izzards style in Gervaiss approach, especially noticeable when he dissects the Biblical Genesis story for its absurdities; & he has also learned lessons from the father of his Office co-star Lucy Davis, Jasper Carrott. In the best segment, & one thats pure Carrott Confidential, Gervais reads out genuine animal facts from a website & comments gleefully upon them. Although his range is limited, hes neither an impressionist nor a mimic, Gervais gets by on a mixture of easygoing charm & bare-faced cheek, which in a short show of about an hour is all he needs to keep everyone laughing.

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