Ricky Gervais Live 3 - Fame [2007]

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Customer reviews

review by: date: 2008-09-29 rating:
Cringe inducing - not in a good way
This show really shows up Ricky Gervais' woeful lack of experience as a stand-up comedian. The lack of structure, the self-indulgent 'corpsing', and the weakness of the material, all indicate a lazy approach which would have a fledgling comic shouted off the stage at any open-mike night at the local boozer. However, this is Ricky Gervais - so well known that he can say anything in a tone of squeaky outrage and it will raise a laugh.

Did he ever actually mention fame? I don't remember. Just a lot of laboured lines about teenage cancer sufferers and old jokes (well, they sounded old) about fat people, gays and foreigners.

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review by: date: 2008-09-20 rating:
Hilarious
This show was VERY funny, so don't pay attention to the negative reviews - it seems they have nothing better to do.

Watch it for yourself and make your own minds up - it was extremely funny and anyone with any intelligence can see none of his material was ever done in a malicious way. I honestly didn't find any of his material offensive at all (including the cancer jokes), and think people should lighten up(!). Cancer affects 1 in 3 people (not just little kids) and if you can't joke about it, I wonder what this world is coming to.

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review by: Hease date: 2008-09-16 rating:
True colours
An insecure performance with unpleasant undertones.Ive never liked bullies and highlighting differences in this way for laughs seems very old fashioned comedy and not very clever.Seems like he saves his best material for TV.

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review by: Music maestro date: 2008-08-23 rating:
Fame on the wane.
I am not really a fan of The Office, and I did not like Extras but I did really like the first two Ricky Gervais solo comedy DVDs, namely Animals and Politics. This did not live up to the expectations generated by the success and quality of those first two offerings.

I am broad minded and have a wide sense of humour, including some bawdy and some juvenile jokes, so some parts of this DVD were really amusing. However, I found a lot of it to be in poor taste, most notably the joking about kids with cancer, despite me knowing it was a joke, it's not a laughing matter and someone like him should not need to stoop so low to raise a cheap laugh. I did not laugh anyway.

Yes, he has been very successful, but some of his act was too smug for my liking, and I feel this smugness boiled over into complacancy as this was not a very good show.

Although I find humour in lavatorial jokes at times, he went too far and did too many in his act, and it began to grate on me.

I also found the African accent sketch dragged on and became irritating, and was not even funny when it eventually got to the punchline.

I'd say this is for completists only. I certainly won't be watching it again.


review by: date: 2008-08-05 rating:
milking it
You wonder what all the fuss is about...you watch 'The Office' and think it is on its way to reaching perfection. You watch 'Extras' and you mostly witness really mediocre material with rogue sharp and very funny television moments; usually featuring Merchant, Williamson or Jensen. You think the Podcasts just get progressively worse but have a sneaking admiration for Pilkington; the podcasts are a vehicle for him and rightly so. You get tired of that stupid switch-on-and-off Gervais girlie-laugh, 'head like a...orange', 'you're an idiot!' schtick.

You watch 'Animals' and feel that aside from the mildly amusing Rick Waller joke, this is third-rate end of the pier stuff writ large. You think 'someone so championed, not least by themselves, will not make a second bad live show...much too shrewd.' In the meantime, you look at the success of 'Flanimals' and at least see why kids love those books...good, silly fun. Why not? You watch 'Politics' and the jokes are pretty wafer-thin and you are incredulous that the material is this lacklustre and predictable. And yet...still the awards roll in...BAFTAS, EMMYS...so, you think, 'what is it I am missing here?' Then 'Fame' hits the screen...you think, 'at last...good opening...he's going to be great this time...' But, no. Gervais fails to bring a smile throughout the show.

And you decide that it doesn't matter how many records get broken, how many awards are supplied, how many films get made and how much pomp surrounds Gervais. This is a man who is a PR man to rival Barnum. He tells everyone he is great so often that the myth becomes bigger than the man. You watch 'Live Aid (slight return)',The Diana concert', the cringe-inducing Garry Shandling interview, that woeful episode of 'The Simpsons'... and you are confronted with a severe lack of talent on the screen... you note how very inadequately Gervais handles even the slightest criticism of what he does.

You have watched this man's every move and product because the media and Gervais would have you believe he is comic gold and you are about to witness the best and you want it to be true. You cannot believe how someone who co-created something as brilliant as 'The Office' could get away with so much mediocre dross in its wake. And you realise that this man has terrific business-savvy and could personally charm Vatican staff into leading an atheist rally; This man is not a comic genius. Gervais cannot do stand-up any near as well as Richard Pryor or George Carlin (RIP) or Garry Shandling (a few great stand-ups)...he's not anywhere as good or as inventive as Ross Noble, Lee Evans, Jimmy Carr, Bill Bailey etc. Gervais is marginally better than someone you can see for free at a seaside resort. I hope those films are good...

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