A special feature on a link which I think is well worthwhile checking out.
Ricky Gervais Podcast
Listen to the ramblings of the men behind ‘The Office’ and ‘Extras’, and their inspiration!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/rickygervais/
You may have heard of ‘The Office’, or perhaps the more recent series from the same team, ‘Extras’. Both series were created by Ricky Gervais and Steven Merchant; Gervais does the screen time, while Merchant is the writing partner, and I believe both worked together on Gervais’ stand-up routine too. The ‘The Office’ which was a comedy series set in a paper merchant’s office and filmed in a documentary style (so much so, that whether or not you found it funny or too realistic was up to you, as the viewer), was close to comic genius, along the lines of ‘Spinal Tap’ with office workers. Some people found it’s comedy of awkwardness almost too much to take, and it’s shrewdness of observation was acute. Great stuff, and a shoe-in to join great British television comedy. Gervais’ character, David Brent, as the manager of the office, was fantastic, and the focus of much of the comedy, and many people felt they had worked with someone similar.
‘Extras’ is more of the same observational comedy, set in the world of television and movie extras, with Gervais playing an extra trying to break into acting, and with cameos from a number of well-known faces (who, after having seen or heard about ‘The Office’, were all too keen to get involved and parody themselves). Again, it’s sharp, and lacking in canned laughter, which leaves it to the viewer to form their own opinions.
What ‘s a Podcast? It’s an audio file (such as an MP3) published on the Internet with the specific intent of users downloading it to an MP3 player and listening to it at their own leisure. There is now a sort of agreed protocol for this, so that if you have iTunes from Apple for example, then you can subscribe to a so-called feed so that you automatically recieve each new installment to your PC, and then put that into your music player, if you have one.Just before Christmas, Gervais and Merchant were commisioned to create a ‘podcast’ for The Guardian Online, which is Gervais, Merchant and their long-suffering producer, Karl Pilkington, rambling on for half an hour about all sorts of stuff. I’ve been listening to this, and since found out that they used to do this for a living for XFM, an English radio station. In fact, I notice on the podcasts for The Guardian that they’re now really letting Pilkington make the shows with his rambling and often esoteric views on just about everything, and the other two (who are a lot less funny than he is) abuse him viciously. I think that some of Gervais’ material in particular (on the podcasts) is fairly contrived and he isn’t as funny as he seems, and a lot of his material is in fact based on the views and mannerisms of Karl Pilkington…
Anyway, check it all out, some of it is very, very funny, and the older XFM material is hysterical. If you have a music player, download it and get listening.