Ricky Gervais: Mortality

Now, I love Ricky Gervais, I think he's clever & I agree with a lot of his world views - and I loved most of his stand-up specials, but this one was a bit lukewarm, and I can't understand why.

It's almost like he is either too scared to be too controversial, or he's run out of steam.

There was no cohesive red thread running through the show, the jokes were landing, but not in a 'Only Ricky Gervais could get away with that' kind of way....

I felt underwhelmed, it was missing the edge, the childishness was subdued, all in all a rather safe affair.

I love Ricky, I think he is a great human being who is not afraid to speak his mind, but I need the 'old' Ricky back to fully enjoy.....

I almost forgot what is like to laugh until you cry. You know which part, right? I could have been ironing. Jeeeeeeezussssss.

To think that one of the so called greats on the other side of the pond just dropped a preachy, hateful dud...

Ricky, you might have just saved comedy.

I could have been ironing. Jeeeeeeeezussssss.

Ricky's body of work is ever expanding and I never tire of his humour or his sentiment.

Mortality is another laugh-out-loud funny stand up from this comedy genius. I think his sit-coms are his real strength, but his stand ups are all hilarious, even though they do tend to be a little more low brow.

Keep up the great work Ricky!

Fairly funny standup with quite a few controversial jokes. He's still got it! One corrective note is that the UK definitely doesn't have free speech haha. It's strange that he tested the limits in so many ways but gave the UK a pass for their draconian restrictions on free speech. That aside there's quite a few solid laughs in here unlike some other recent Netflix specials (Segura and Chappelle..)

I'm a massive Gervais fan. Which makes this review and rating hard to stomach. From his stand up to his superb comedy writing there's nothing this man does that isn't golden. Except this I'm afraid.

I've always agreed with his edgy stance, his atheistic view on religion and above all his "just because you're offended doesn't mean you're right" approach.

But this... this was a man signalling the twilight of his stand up comedy. Firstly at an hour long he really short changed the paying public but to short change them with some rambling mundane thoughts that occasionally drifted into comedy was the ultimate fleece.

Of course there were funny parts, and there were flashes of the stand up Ricky of old, going off on a tangent, making himself laugh, but these high bright parts were comic spikes in a mostly dull affair.

There was no cohesion, no linkages, and with 19 minutes to go said I'm going to finish off talking about the Golden Globes. Finish off? With a third of the show to go? And that was it, telling anecdotes about those awards that wouldn't have been out of place on Conan or Norton.

Perhaps I've seen too much Jimmy Carr this past few months to appreciate what good standup is.

Looking back to the laugh a second comedy banquets of Humanity, Science or Animals, Afterlife and Derek this is pale soup to be served up by a man who admittedly and humourously tells us he doesn't need the money and delivers poor value for it.

It's hard to write disparaging things about those you admire and respect and I really hope he put his efforts into more TV because that's where his talent has been the last few years.