Latest news with #RickyGervais
Telegraph
23-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
‘Celebrities are just like us – idiots': Ricky Gervais on Extras turning 20
Samuel L Jackson was a fan of The Office – one of many celebrity fans whom Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant encountered in the wake of their mockumentary sitcom success. Jackson had watched The Office on DVD, a concept that still amuses Merchant. 'It just seemed so weird,' he says. 'The image of Sam Jackson at home, trying to get the cellophane off of the DVD – having to get a key and scratching it off – then popping the DVD in and putting his feet up with a cup of coffee or whatever.' There was a common theme among their celebrity fans: many stars said they'd like to work with Gervais and Merchant in the future. 'It happened often enough that we thought it would be nice to take advantage of that,' says Merchant. The celebs had unwittingly cast themselves in Gervais and Merchant's follow-up sitcom, Extras, which first aired on BBC Two 20 years ago this week, on July 21, 2005. Across Extras' two series and feature-length Christmas special, A-list guest stars included Samuel L Jackson, Kate Winslet, Ben Stiller, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, George Michael, Daniel Radcliffe, Orlando Bloom, David Bowie, and Robert De Niro. Most played what Gervais and Merchant described as 'twisted' versions of themselves: egomaniacs, oddballs, fantasists, buffoons. 'It wasn't as common at the time to have these A-listers ridiculing themselves,' says Gervais. 'It was before social media – before everyone found out that celebrities are just like us. They're idiots!' But the celebs were, ironically enough, just supporting players to Extras' real lead characters: Andy Millman (Gervais) and best friend Maggie (Ashley Jensen). 'We didn't want it to be, 'look at my celebrity mates,'' says Gervais. 'They had to be bonuses, appendages. Because it was really about a guy who was struggling and selling everything for an ambition.' In the first series, Andy – a film extra and frustrated wannabe actor – scrabbles around film sets for one meagre line of dialogue, sucking up to and putting his foot in it with star names. In the second series, Andy's dreams seemingly come true when he gets his own BBC sitcom. But ratings-chasing compromises – broad gags, funny wigs and catchphrases ('Are you havin' a laugh?') – turn his modicum of celebrity into a series of humiliations. He sells any semblance of artistic integrity to cling on to fame while grumbling to Maggie that he should be higher up the showbiz ladder; that he deserves more respect. 'No matter how successful you are, you'll never be famous enough,' Maggie warns him shortly before he signs up for the ultimate profile-boosting indignity: Celebrity Big Brother. Who's who in Extras Maggie is the heart and conscience of Extras, Andy is the snark and insecurity, and his hilariously useless agent, Darren Lamb (Merchant) is the s--t-for-brains. The tragedy (and all great British sitcoms need a touch of something tragic) comes from the lower rungs of showbiz, a source of imagined desperation. Les Dennis lays his personal and professional woes bare (while also baring his backside) and Shaun Williamson – best known as Barry off EastEnders – plays himself as a down-on-his-luck sad-sack. He's so unable to shake the EastEnders image that even his agent, Darren, calls him Barry and describes him as having 'an undercurrent of tragedy'. Looking back, Gervais remembers an old sketch idea that now feels like a precursor to Extras. It was a Braveheart-like scene, with a Mel Gibson-like star, in which a camera would pan across the battle lines until one extra suddenly asked, 'What time's lunch?' 'Imagine being at the bottom of the pile and ruining it,' says Gervais. 'That was the funny seed.' Gervais likens it to a moment that sums up the first series, when Andy tries to edge into a shot – in the background of a Ross Kemp period drama – then hears the director say, 'Cut before that fat little extra gets his face in.' 'It was an absurd world' Extras was also inspired by the fact that Gervais and Merchant were, at the time, new to show business. 'It was such an absurd world that we'd entered,' says Merchant. 'It was bizarre encountering award ceremonies and film sets and celebrities. It was hard not to think of that as a fun subject. We felt like outsiders.' 'I worked in an office for nine years, so I wrote about it,' says Gervais. 'After that, my job was sort of show business. It's irresistible to write about your own job. Write what you know.' Merchant recalls that they originally planned to use A-listers as actual extras. 'They'd literally be walking around in the background,' he says. 'You'd see Sam Jackson or Kate Winslet, but they'd say nothing. They were just extras in the show. At some point, we thought if we got them all the way to the set, it seems silly to squander them. We started to think about how they could interact with the characters.' It wasn't a new idea. The Larry Sanders Show and Curb Your Enthusiasm had featured Hollywood stars playing fictionalised versions of themselves. In Extras, the celebrities are there to make Andy squirm under the backstage power dynamic and to hold up the cracked mirror of fame – they reveal themselves as out-of-touch with reality, or as massively out-of-step with their public persona. 'Famous people behaving badly' Ben Stiller turns his hand from comedy acting to directing a war drama. But he's a tyrant, threatening to shoot a child actor's mum in the face and screaming about Meet the Fockers' box office take. 'When I sent Ben Stiller the rough idea, he said, 'You've tapped into my inner soul,'' says Gervais, laughing. In another episode, Kate Winslet plays herself as a foul-mouthed nun in a Second World War film. She dishes out advice on dirty phone calls and admits that she's only doing a Holocaust drama for an Oscar. 'And then she wins an Oscar for a Holocaust film!' says Gervais, in reference to The Reader (2008). As smart as Extras is – tinkering with multiple levels of the fourth wall and playing out the John Updike quote that 'celebrity is a mask that eats into the face' – Gervais agrees there was some childish glee in getting their A-listers to say and do outrageous things. 'It was famous people behaving badly,' Gervais says. 'That's what it could have been called.' 'The more that these people said that they were interested, the more it became a game of what would be the most unpleasant or funniest version of themselves – the one that was most incongruous with their public image,' says Merchant. He adds: 'Normally, we'd get a tentative yes and we'd write a script with them in mind to see if they were happy. They almost all were. I think Kate Winslet had a couple of lines that were particularly offensive that she wouldn't say, but other than that she was game for it. They were just game for a laugh. There was very little push-back. It was surprisingly easy.' A personal favourite from the first series is Patrick Stewart, who begins by bellowing out a speech from The Tempest then tells Andy about a script he's written himself, in which he controls the world with the power of his mind – a power he mostly uses for making ladies' clothes fall off. ('Even before she can get her knickers back on, I've seen everything ... I've seen it all.') 'One of the most dignified Shakespearian actors in the world talking about knickers,' sniggers Gervais. Another highlight is Ross Kemp, who lies about feats of hard-nuttery ('I headbutted a horse once') and boasts he could batter Vinnie Jones – until Vinnie turns up to show him what being hard is all about. There's a touch of melancholy to Kemp – a wounded, lip-quivering Billy no-mates. 'He was a little bit nervous,' says Gervais. 'He did talk about portraying himself and going too far. He said, 'Well, it's OK if you're Sam Jackson!' He was very conscious and worried about perception. But he still did it!' Les Dennis goes close-to-the-bone The celeb who played the riskiest version of themself was Les Dennis. The episode is daringly close-to-the-bone, portraying the former Family Fortunes host as a washed-up has-been who – between panto performances – showers a much-younger girlfriend with £50 notes and calls up Heat magazine to report celebrity sightings of, well, himself. The lowest moment comes when Les discovers his girlfriend is cheating. He slumps into his dressing room chair, traumatised and naked. Gervais rates it as the best episode. 'It was the one where we sailed very close to the wind as to the public perception of him,' says Gervais. 'As opposed to playing against type or making something up.' 'It was a way of exploring how celebrity works,' says Merchant. 'It chews you up and spits you out.' It came after Dennis's real-life divorce from Amanda Holden and a maudlin stint on Celebrity Big Brother that made him a tabloid target. One headline read, 'Is this the most pathetic man in Britain?' 'My agent called to say Ricky Gervais wants you to call him,' says Dennis. 'I thought, 'What? Why would Ricky Gervais want me to call him?' It wasn't long after Big Brother. The phone wasn't exactly ringing at the time. Ricky asked me if I wanted to play a 'twisted, demented' version of myself.' Dennis visited their office to talk about the episode. 'They said, 'How far can we go?' and I said, 'Go as far as you like!' On the way out, Ricky said, 'How do you feel about the arse shot?' I said, 'What?' He said, 'You'll be naked in the dressing room. Do you want a double?' I said, 'No I'll do it myself.'' When they shot the scene, he wore nothing but a cricket box. 'Ricky said, 'I'm not having Les's offal in my face! I want him to wear something!'' Dennis recalls, laughing. 'There were tea and biscuits around and Ricky picked up the ginger nuts.' Dennis's friends were concerned about him taking the role – they were suspicious that it might be a Brass Eye-type set-up – but Dennis knew he had to do it. 'At the time I was known as 'Les Miserables,'' he says. 'I came out of the Big Brother house and had a lot of stuff going on. People thought I was grumpy, but I just didn't like being invaded by the press. I thought, just go for it and show you've got a sense of humour about all this stuff that's being written.' Dennis came up with lines to ridicule himself even more. For one climactic scene – in bed with a woman he's just pulled – Dennis suggested blurting out his Family Fortunes catchphrase: 'If it's up there, I'll give you the money me-self.' Dennis remembers that Gervais was laughing so much filming the scene that Merchant ordered him off set. 'He said, 'Ricky, you've ruined the take, you've laughed over the dialogue, you've got to go out,'' says Dennis. 'He got thrown out of the room by Stephen.' The role changed the public perception of Dennis and boosted his theatre career. 'They helped me reinvent myself,' he says. Orlando Bloom told us to 'go harder' Dennis wasn't the only celeb insisting they go more extreme. Orlando Bloom told Gervais and Merchant to 'go harder' when he's trying to prove he's a bigger heartthrob than Johnny Depp. 'Orlando Bloom said, 'Go harder, let me go after Johnny Depp harder, make it worse!'' says Gervais. 'Willy Wonka? Johnny w-----r! ' says Bloom, trying to impress Maggie on the set of a courtroom drama. In other ridiculous celebrity appearances, Daniel Radcliffe plays himself as a randy teenager and accidentally flicks an unravelled condom onto Dame Diana Rigg's head. Gervais had to delicately position the condom on Rigg's head himself. 'When Daniel Radcliffe flicks it, we had to get it to land,' says Gervais. 'So, at one point I was putting it over her eye a little bit. I was saying, 'Can you see? Is that alright?' She said, 'Yeah. That's alright.' And I just thought, that's a weird day at work.' Elsewhere, they cast George Michael as a kebab-chomping, joint-smoking troublemaker. The much-treasured singer uses his community service lunch break to scout Hampstead Heath for sexual encounters. 'What a performer,' says Gervais. 'Just willing to be cottaging, smoking a joint, eating a kebab … He'd just done that community service, so we had him in trouble with the police.' In the episode, George is in trouble for fly-tipping a fridge freezer with Annie Lennox. Sting grassed them up to the council. 'Because he's a f----er do-gooder,' says George. Gervais and Merchant were, of course, the new darlings of British comedy at the time. Stars wanted to be involved. 'We had a blank cheque of kudos that we could cash-in,' says Merchant. 'Ronnie Corbett said his grandchildren told him, 'You've got to do this,'' says Gervais. 'And then we've got him in the toilets at the Baftas taking coke! It's mad what they were willing to say and do.' 'Two celebrities turned us down' Gervais and Merchant can only remember two celebs who turned them down. One was Syd Little of Little and Large. 'He read the script and thought it was too much, the swearing or whatever. He was an old family entertainer,' says Gervais. The other was Orville the Duck ventriloquist Keith Harris, who thought the show was some kind of wind-up. 'But I think Ian McKellen said he thought it was a wind-up,' says Gervais. Looking back now, do Gervais and Merchant have favourite celebrity appearances? For Merchant, it's the one and only Robert De Niro, who appears briefly with Merchant in series two. 'We were making the show and kept on referring to Robert De Niro without knowing if he was going to do it,' says Merchant. 'Finally, he gave us an hour. Because of my giant height [6ft 7in] and his relatively normal human size, there's a wide shot where I look three times as big as him – because of the weird perspective. There were conspiracy theories that we were never in the same room. I was like, 'Are you kidding me?! We worked so hard to get me in the same room!'' Merchant adds: 'Ricky was behind the camera and gave me a couple of notes. Robert De Niro said, 'Any notes for me?' We just started laughing! ' Yeah, we're giving you notes!'' Gervais chooses Bowie. 'Working with my hero David Bowie – writing a song with my hero David Bowie – is off the charts.' In the episode, Bowie listens to Andy's complaints about the sitcom, at which point Bowie bursts into his song. Gervais admits it's a bit surreal in contrast to other celebs. 'You meet David Bowie and then he writes a song!' says Gervais. 'It's almost like cheating, that. But it was well done and I think we were allowed. If you've got David Bowie for the day and he's written a song, he's allowed to sing it!' Twenty years on, Gervais is still amused by the idea that their A-listers were – to quote When the Whistle Blows – very much up for having a laugh. 'Surprising,' Gervais says. 'Just surprising that they said yes and then went along with it.'
The Guardian
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘I've not got a problem with making myself look disgusting': the wild rise of Diane Morgan
Diane Morgan went vegan a few months ago, so naturally, we meet for lunch at a restaurant in central London that almost entirely serves cheese. It is a humid, muggy day. 'You don't often hear people use the word 'muggy' now,' Morgan says, when I mention it. 'How many people do you hear saying that, on a daily basis?' A pause. 'Under the age of 85, I mean.' Morgan is famous for her deadpan style, which she has honed to perfection as the mockumentary host Philomena Cunk, and has put to use all over British TV, from the dour Liz in Motherland to Kath in Ricky Gervais's sitcom After Life, with a recent stint as the reporter Onya Doorstep in Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. Over a lovely looking cheese-free salad, she admits that she is becoming more of a hippy as she gets older. 'As I'm cascading towards the grave,' she laughs. Morgan is here to talk about the surreal, anarchic Mandy, which she created, writes and stars in. It is 'pure stupidity', she says, gleefully, ahead of its fourth series. 'There's no meaning. You're not going to learn anything. I don't want to learn anything.' The episodes are barely 15 minutes long, and see Mandy try out various jobs and get-rich-quick schemes, as she is forced to navigate fatbergs, psychics, illicit medical procedures, Russian gangsters and plane hijackings. Back in the day, Morgan and her friend Michael Spicer ('a YouTube sensation now') would meet up at a pub – upstairs, in an empty room, not at the bar, she clarifies – with a bag of wigs, to play around with characters. One of them became Mandy. Mandy first made an appearance on Craig Cash's short-lived 2016 sitcom Rovers. When the BBC asked Morgan if she had any ideas for a new comedy, Mandy staged a comeback. They filmed a 15-minute pilot, in which Mandy covets a white leather sofa, leading to a Princess Di makeover that clashes with an experimental medical trial. 'I never thought they'd pick it up, and I think that's why it was so mad,' she says. 'I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted.' It went out in 2019, and was soon picked up for a full series. 'I thought, fantastic, made it, and then thought, oh shit.' She was so nervous about it airing that she almost phoned the BBC and asked them to pull it. 'It felt really personal, in some ways,' she explains. In the new series, Mandy vomits ice-cream on to a small child's head and gets 'rancid lamb fat' injected into her backside. How personal are we talking? 'I felt like people were going to go, what the hell is that? And I'm sure a lot of people did. It's just what I felt like doing at the time, as a reaction to all those Fleabaggy dramas. Fleabag's brilliant, but because it was so successful, there were loads of other shows that were a bit like that.' Mandy is not like that. Instead, it was inspired by more grotesque physical comedies such as Bottom. 'Where they're just beating each other up repeatedly. I couldn't think of a woman that had done that.' She wonders whether women don't want to make themselves look disgusting. 'I've not got a problem with that,' she laughs. 'Because that's what I want to see.' In the first proper episode, Mandy gets a job in a banana factory, squashing spiders. I think about it every time I pick up a bunch at the supermarket. 'I was told that was an actual job in Bolton,' she insists. 'They would hand you a mallet and if the spider ran out, you'd just clobber it. That was a job! Otherwise, what do you do? Just let them run free?' Morgan has done quite a few of the jobs that Mandy tries, it turns out. 'Chip shop, telesales, Avon lady, dental nurse, packing worming tablets. All kinds of stuff. I've been pretty terrible at all of them.' She grew up near Bolton, and had always wanted to act, but for a while, struggled to get into drama school. At one point, she and her friend Maxine Peake decided to have elocution lessons. 'We thought the reason we weren't getting into drama school was because we were so broad,' she says. Sign up to What's On Get the best TV reviews, news and features in your inbox every Monday after newsletter promotion How did those lessons go? 'Well … badly,' she laughs. 'But it's mad, isn't it, that the thing that was separating me out, I wanted to get rid of.' She realised 'far too late' what made her special. 'I think it was when I'd left drama school. I started doing standup, and then I started getting acting parts, and they were always miserable northerners.' It finally occurred to her that what she had been trying to suppress was exactly what people found funny. 'The flat, miserable noise of my voice.' Morgan has played Philomena Cunk for over a decade, and in the past, she has said that the two are very similar. 'Basically the same,' she nods, today. But it sounds like there's more crossover with Mandy than you'd think. 'There's a lot of overlap there. I'm probably more like Cunk, because Mandy's quite brazen. I haven't got [Cunk's] social skills, because I didn't go to public school. She doesn't care, whereas I do care. That's the big difference.' She will freely admit, though, that she loves an awkward moment. 'I'm completely happy in silences, as you can probably tell from Cunk. I revel in them, almost.' When she interviews experts for what looks like minutes on screen, she might have been talking to them for hours, waiting for the perfect response to the often mindless questions. 'Basically, it's an improvised conversation, because you never know when they might go, 'what do you think?'' She has to second guess what they might say, and work out where she might take it from there. 'If they completely fall into the trap I've set, it's like feeding strawberries to a donkey. It's great.' Philomena Cunk is unexpectedly massive in the US. 'Oh my god, yeah, they love it.' Morgan has done the rounds on the late night talk shows; she got a standing ovation when she walked out on to the Stephen Colbert stage. 'It sounds ridiculous, saying it,' she laughs. 'I felt like one of the Beatles.' Cunk is so big on social media that people don't always realise she's a character from a TV show. Sometimes, when they meet Morgan, they call her 'the TikTok lady' From 2016 to 2022, Morgan played Liz in the hectic parenting comedy Motherland. Have they asked her to be in its spinoff, Amandaland? 'No.' She leaves one of those perfect silences. 'Bit awkward,' she jokes. 'No, I think it would be weird if we'd all gone back into it, and called it Amandaland. It's a different show.' She hasn't seen it, solely for the reason that she doesn't watch much comedy. 'It feels too close to home. I can't switch my brain off from going, oh, I see what you did there. I just ruin it, because I can't enjoy things.' She prefers documentaries. 'I find documentaries really funny, especially ones from the 70s. There's one that's purely about people who have got struck by lightning. It's just superb.' Surely Philomena Cunk has ruined documentaries for everyone? 'But they're still making them, exactly the same,' she says. 'They make shows and you think, this is exactly like Cunk! How can you do this?' Morgan recently appeared on the celebrity genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are?, which was surreal for a number of reasons. First, because Mandy had already done a spoof of it called Who Are You, Do You Think, and second, because it is full of Cunk-like documentary tropes. Morgan leans into the daftness of it, doing those long, distant walking shots, and pleading not to have to look over her shoulder for the opening credits. 'My mum said to my auntie, 'Diane's done Who Do You Think You Are, are you going to watch it?' And my auntie said, 'Depends what else is on'. Swear to God. Depends what else is on. None of them give a shit. Keeps me very grounded.' Morgan loves Mandy's 15-minute episodes. 'You're in, you're out, you've got your life back. I don't want anything that's like, oh, this is 47 seasons and it doesn't get going until episode 16.' But she will soon be returning to half-an-hour with Ann Droid, the new comedy she has written with Sarah Kendall. A year ago, Morgan read an article about the possibility of robot carers for child-free older people in Japan. 'I thought, I don't have any kids. Shit, that'll be me, ending up with a robot.' It made her laugh so much that they sent the idea to the BBC, who said yes. 'Then we had to write it.' Worse, she has cast herself as the robot. 'It didn't occur to me that it would be difficult, over six weeks, to move like this,' she says, lifting her arms stiffly. She is currently in training with a movement coach. 'I spend an hour a day, walking around the house like a robot.' I can't believe your family don't care about what you do, I say. 'I know! They don't ask,' she shrugs. 'Not bothered.' Mandy returns on Monday 21 July at 10pm on BBC Two.
The Guardian
13-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Kerry Godliman looks back: ‘If my parents hadn't laughed so much at my jokes, I wouldn't be doing what I do now'
Born in London in 1973, Kerry Godliman is a comedian and actor. She trained at Rose Bruford Drama School, before taking a course on standup comedy at the adult education college City Lit. In 2012, she was cast as Hannah in Ricky Gervais's Derek, and has appeared in dramas including Save Me, Adult Material and Trigger Point, along with pursuing her career in live comedy and radio. Godliman hosts the Memory Lane podcast with Jen Brister, and performs live in London on 15 July. She is married to actor Ben Abell and they have two children. This was taken at my mum's 40th – a big house party where everyone dressed up. I was going through a 60s phase with the dress, the hair and the eyeliner – all of which was probably inspired by Deee-Lite. There would have been a lot of drinking and smoking and good music. Pretty raucous all round. I felt suburban and strait-laced during my childhood, but as I've got older I've realised my parents were quite bohemian. My dad was a violin-maker and worked in the shed, and my mum was a secondhand clothes dealer who was always studying something new. When it came to work, she wasn't risk-averse and collected interesting people as friends. There was never anyone around our house who had an office job – no accountants popping in. I must have taken that on board when I chose my career. Being self-employed is all I knew. At the time this photo was taken, I was doing my GCSE retakes and about to start my A-levels. I may have failed some exams, but I don't remember being that stressed about it. My general attitude was: 'If I don't get the grades, I'll just do them again.' This picture captures my laid-back mindset perfectly. In my teen years, I was very committed to the local youth theatre in Ealing. It gave me a lot of my creative joy and a real sense of identity. Instead of doing musicals, we were more interested in gritty pieces about HIV. We once made a safe-sex video for Ealing council, during which I played a mum wearing an awful wig and chain-smoking. Not that that was too out of character. For the best part of a decade, there isn't a photo of me without a fag in my hand. There was a lot of banter in my family and my childhood was a lot of fun. We watched tons of comedy on telly, especially Victoria Wood and Billy Connolly. I also enjoyed making the grownups laugh, which led to me wanting to try standup. I think if my parents hadn't indulged me by laughing so much I wouldn't be doing what I do now. There was also Miss Friend, a teacher at school, who was always encouraging. She once wrote in a report: 'Kerry's good, and she could pursue acting for a job … if she doesn't muck around and waste too much time.' I followed the traditional path into acting: I got one line in The Bill, a couple of scenes in Casualty. It was very incremental and bitty. There were lots of 'nearly' moments in my 20s – I nearly got a job at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and I nearly got a nice lead in a sitcom. While it was affirming that I was on the right path, there was also a feeling of never being quite enough. But I don't resent it – that feeling is what pushed me towards standup comedy in the end. Once I discovered standup, I threw myself at it, because I wanted to get better. I loved Victoria Wood, so always assumed I would do character comedy, but I quickly realised that on stage, I had to be me. Or a cartoon version of me. One that's slightly heightened, hyperbolic and nutty. It was very exciting when I got the email from Ricky Gervais about playing Hannah in Derek. It wasn't the usual cattle-call that actors get, he just asked me: 'Do you want to play this part?' I've always been too shy to ask him how he knew about me in the first place – but he loves standup, so he would have seen me on stage at some point, and I had sent in an audition tape for The Office. After Derek, he gave me a scene on Extras and Life's Too Short. Then came After Life – which was mind‑blowing, because it blew up in lockdown when everyone was incubated. The show has since had a life of its own – even this week, someone came up to me and told me how important the show was to them. I feel very grateful to have been part of a bit of culture that creates intimate conversations between people about grief. I always loved comedians who talked about social stigmas, who made human foibles funny. I'm really glad that I'm able to do that with my own standup now. Particularly because I am in the midlife 'fuck it' years, where you have limited bandwidth to hold everything together, so you've got to let some things go. There are times where I get a bit self-conscious because my standup material is so domestic – but that's the landscape of my life. There's always some drama with my knickers or some household frustration to laugh at. Given I am menopausal, there are a lot of emotions to unpick, too. Some days I feel as if I'm drowning, and other days I am blissed-out and feel these are the best years of my life. It's very cathartic to let it all out in a room with a group of women I suspect are all on the same page. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion When I was starting out in this career, I used to be riddled with all kinds of anxieties. I thought I'd never find my place in the world, or I'd never meet anyone special. I feel a lot less of that now, but naturally the odd bit of insecurity rises up at times. I've never met anyone who doesn't feel like that. Although I did recently meet a man who said: 'Hey, have you ever heard of impostor syndrome?' I was like: 'Yeah, I think I've heard of that.' Mind you, Ricky is genuinely a fearless person. Has his fearlessness ever rubbed off on me? He has a different profile, he is an older bloke in a world that listens to older blokes. I think sometimes women have had to fight a little bit more for that stuff, but we're getting there. When you have young kids, you devote so much of your life to them, so when they suddenly leave and do their own thing, you have to ask yourself: 'What should I do now?' At the moment, I am doing a lot of standup, which is great, but it can get a little lonely when you're on tour. I'd like to do more theatre, too, and I still love acting, even if it's unpredictable. I didn't get a job that I really wanted the other day. It was humbling, but I'm definitely better at rolling with the punches than I used to be. I've had more experience, and I have faith that something else will come along. My daughter has now decided she wants to get into acting. I'm like: 'I hope I haven't failed my kids by showing them that it's perfectly normal to have this precarious, up-and-down lifestyle!' As for big fancy house parties, I can't remember the last time I went to one. My kids' generation doesn't seem to do them. Or maybe I'm just not invited!
The Guardian
13-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Kerry Godliman looks back: ‘If my parents hadn't laughed so much at my jokes, I wouldn't be doing what I do now'
Born in London in 1973, Kerry Godliman is a comedian and actor. She trained at Rose Bruford Drama School, before taking a course on standup comedy at the adult education college City Lit. In 2012, she was cast as Hannah in Ricky Gervais's Derek, and has appeared in dramas including Save Me, Adult Material and Trigger Point, along with pursuing her career in live comedy and radio. Godliman hosts the Memory Lane podcast with Jen Brister, and performs live in London on 15 July. She is married to actor Ben Abell and they have two children. This was taken at my mum's 40th – a big house party where everyone dressed up. I was going through a 60s phase with the dress, the hair and the eyeliner – all of which was probably inspired by Deee-Lite. There would have been a lot of drinking and smoking and good music. Pretty raucous all round. I felt suburban and strait-laced during my childhood, but as I've got older I've realised my parents were quite bohemian. My dad was a violin-maker and worked in the shed, and my mum was a secondhand clothes dealer who was always studying something new. When it came to work, she wasn't risk-averse and collected interesting people as friends. There was never anyone around our house who had an office job – no accountants popping in. I must have taken that on board when I chose my career. Being self-employed is all I knew. At the time this photo was taken, I was doing my GCSE retakes and about to start my A-levels. I may have failed some exams, but I don't remember being that stressed about it. My general attitude was: 'If I don't get the grades, I'll just do them again.' This picture captures my laid-back mindset perfectly. In my teen years, I was very committed to the local youth theatre in Ealing. It gave me a lot of my creative joy and a real sense of identity. Instead of doing musicals, we were more interested in gritty pieces about HIV. We once made a safe-sex video for Ealing council, during which I played a mum wearing an awful wig and chain-smoking. Not that that was too out of character. For the best part of a decade, there isn't a photo of me without a fag in my hand. There was a lot of banter in my family and my childhood was a lot of fun. We watched tons of comedy on telly, especially Victoria Wood and Billy Connolly. I also enjoyed making the grownups laugh, which led to me wanting to try standup. I think if my parents hadn't indulged me by laughing so much I wouldn't be doing what I do now. There was also Miss Friend, a teacher at school, who was always encouraging. She once wrote in a report: 'Kerry's good, and she could pursue acting for a job … if she doesn't muck around and waste too much time.' I followed the traditional path into acting: I got one line in The Bill, a couple of scenes in Casualty. It was very incremental and bitty. There were lots of 'nearly' moments in my 20s – I nearly got a job at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and I nearly got a nice lead in a sitcom. While it was affirming that I was on the right path, there was also a feeling of never being quite enough. But I don't resent it – that feeling is what pushed me towards standup comedy in the end. Once I discovered standup, I threw myself at it, because I wanted to get better. I loved Victoria Wood, so always assumed I would do character comedy, but I quickly realised that on stage, I had to be me. Or a cartoon version of me. One that's slightly heightened, hyperbolic and nutty. It was very exciting when I got the email from Ricky Gervais about playing Hannah in Derek. It wasn't the usual cattle-call that actors get, he just asked me: 'Do you want to play this part?' I've always been too shy to ask him how he knew about me in the first place – but he loves standup, so he would have seen me on stage at some point, and I had sent in an audition tape for The Office. After Derek, he gave me a scene on Extras and Life's Too Short. Then came After Life – which was mind‑blowing, because it blew up in lockdown when everyone was incubated. The show has since had a life of its own – even this week, someone came up to me and told me how important the show was to them. I feel very grateful to have been part of a bit of culture that creates intimate conversations between people about grief. I always loved comedians who talked about social stigmas, who made human foibles funny. I'm really glad that I'm able to do that with my own standup now. Particularly because I am in the midlife 'fuck it' years, where you have limited bandwidth to hold everything together, so you've got to let some things go. There are times where I get a bit self-conscious because my standup material is so domestic – but that's the landscape of my life. There's always some drama with my knickers or some household frustration to laugh at. Given I am menopausal, there are a lot of emotions to unpick, too. Some days I feel as if I'm drowning, and other days I am blissed-out and feel these are the best years of my life. It's very cathartic to let it all out in a room with a group of women I suspect are all on the same page. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion When I was starting out in this career, I used to be riddled with all kinds of anxieties. I thought I'd never find my place in the world, or I'd never meet anyone special. I feel a lot less of that now, but naturally the odd bit of insecurity rises up at times. I've never met anyone who doesn't feel like that. Although I did recently meet a man who said: 'Hey, have you ever heard of impostor syndrome?' I was like: 'Yeah, I think I've heard of that.' Mind you, Ricky is genuinely a fearless person. Has his fearlessness ever rubbed off on me? He has a different profile, he is an older bloke in a world that listens to older blokes. I think sometimes women have had to fight a little bit more for that stuff, but we're getting there. When you have young kids, you devote so much of your life to them, so when they suddenly leave and do their own thing, you have to ask yourself: 'What should I do now?' At the moment, I am doing a lot of standup, which is great, but it can get a little lonely when you're on tour. I'd like to do more theatre, too, and I still love acting, even if it's unpredictable. I didn't get a job that I really wanted the other day. It was humbling, but I'm definitely better at rolling with the punches than I used to be. I've had more experience, and I have faith that something else will come along. My daughter has now decided she wants to get into acting. I'm like: 'I hope I haven't failed my kids by showing them that it's perfectly normal to have this precarious, up-and-down lifestyle!' As for big fancy house parties, I can't remember the last time I went to one. My kids' generation doesn't seem to do them. Or maybe I'm just not invited!
Daily Mail
13-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
The Office producer Ash Atalla admits he 'sold a bit of himself' when he let Ricky Gervais joke about his disability
Ash Atalla has admitted that he 'sold a bit of himself' when he let Ricky Gervais joke about his disability at the British Comedy Awards in 2001. The producer, 53, who worked alongside the comedian on hit series The Office, 64, shared his regret explaining how he now questions if he was 'right to do that.' While accepting an award for The Office on stage together at the event, Ricky joked that Ash, who uses a wheelchair, was the show's runner. He also referred to him as 'my little wheelchair friend' and quipped that he was 'just the same as Stephen Hawking, but without all the clever stuff'. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, Ash, recalled how he had suggested the joke but has since reconsidered the skit. He explained: 'People in wheelchairs weren't on stages back then. That started the double act of that material on stage.' Ash continued: 'I think when I look back on it, maybe I realise, or I feel I sold a bit of myself in that moment. 'I put the wheelchair front and centre, because I knew it was something that would set me apart, in that instance, set me apart in a good way. 'And just in recent years, as I've thought about it, it's made me consider whether I was sort of right to do that.' Speaking on stage at the time, Ricky joked: 'That's Ash, the producer. He wanted me to tell you that so you didn't think he'd won a competition. 'Thanks very much for this to the British Comedy Awards. You've done a wonderful thing - not for me, but look at his little face.' Ash responded with a rude gesture and Ricky added: 'He can't help that.' Previously, Ash admitted Ricky's repeated jokes about disability made him feel 'a little bit uncomfortable'. In a 2021 interview with The Times, Ash said that he 'wasn't bothered' by Ricky's comments at the time, but feels different many years later. He said: 'I felt a little bit uncomfortable. There was a period of late Nineties comedy with the likes of Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Frankie Boyle where the game was – see what you could get away with and then reverse intellectualise it. Ash added: 'Those jokes didn't bother me at the time, but they would if they happened now. 'I wouldn't allow so many jokes to be made about my wheelchair, I wouldn't want to be defined by that.' The Office, the hit mockumentary sitcom created by comedians Ricky and Stephen Merchant, famously stars Ricky as paper company boss David Brent. Last month, the BBC has slapped the beloved sitcom with trigger warnings as five episodes were flagged for 'discriminatory language'. Both series of the noughties programme were already labelled with a G symbol on BBC iPlayer, which flags parental guidance for younger viewers. But nearly half of the BBC series' 14 episodes, following life at Wernham Hogg's Slough office, now also carry the additional content notice. In series one, which aired in 2001, the first and last episodes - Downsize and Judgement - bear the alert. Meanwhile, a whopping half of the second series, released in 2002, has been hit with trigger warnings - episodes one, three and five, named Merger, Party and Charity. The Office, now considered one of the best British sitcoms of all time, took home a whole host of awards when it first hit our screens The Office, now considered one of the best British sitcoms of all time, took home a whole host of awards when it first hit our screens. It won the Golden Globe for Best Television Series - Musical or Comedy in 2004, making it the first ever British comedy to take home a gong at the ceremony. Ricky also received the Golden Globe for Best Actor - Television Series Musical or Comedy in the same year. Its success lead to an American spin-off version in 2005, starring Steve Carell in the equivalent of Ricky's role. The US programme ran to an impressive nine series and just over 200 episodes, ending in 2013.
