ricky gervais
Stephen Merchant's new sitcom, Hello Ladies, in which he plays lonely Brit Stuart Pritchard looking for love in LA, is on Sky Atlantic on Wednesdays at 10pm from October 16. You can read more about it here. I interviewed Merchant recently for the Independent on Sunday. He was in LA having just had brunch, I was in South London with Crocodile Dundee on ITV in the background.
After last week's frenetic activity on the London circuit this week there are only three gigs to catch and if you haven't got a ticket for the first one yet you might as well enjoy your night in.
Some guys have all the luck. Two years ago I was watching Stephen Merchant do short stand-up spots in grubby London clubs bemoaning his lack of success with women. A little later he went on tour with his first full live show, Hello Ladies. He got rave reviews and ended up doing the show in America where some HBO bods saw it and asked him to turn it into a sitcom. The TV version based on the comedic stage persona starts in the UK this week.
I caught Paul Merton on The One Show the other night promoting his new tour. He was not able to say too much about it, of course, because it is with Paul Merton's Impro Chums so it will be different every night.
Update 15/10/13. Terrific fun seeing David Brent's debut gig at the Bloomsbury Theatre last night. The melodies made you tap your feet, the lyrics made you clench your buttocks. Read full review here.
Can Stephen Merchant be the next British star to make it big in America? He has already had bit parts in projects as diverse as 24 and the Farrelly Brothers' Hall Pass but he now gets the star-billing treatment for his HBO series Hello Ladies, which airs in America from September 29 and is transmitted in the UK on Sky Atlantic from October 16. As the title suggests, the show is inspired by Merchant's first-ever full solo stand-up show of the same in which the gangly gagsmith bemoaned his lack of success with the opposite sex.
The Edinburgh Fringe 2013 is one week old and already there is talk of awards contenders. I won't name any here and make some people giddy with anticipation and others feel like packing their bags. Needless to say, most people doing a comedy show in Edinburgh will not win a Foster's Comedy Award or even be in the running. Of course awards matter, of course they will make your mum proud, but don't get too downhearted.
Do you want conclusive proof that a journalist will do anything to avoid proper work?
I've written before about comedians making comebacks after a period away from the stage. David Baddiel, for instance, is back in Edinburgh in a few weeks for the first time in 15 or 16 years depending on what website you read. Either way it is a long time but not as long as the hiatus since Woody Allen last did stand-up, which must surely be in terms of decades rather than years.
It's directed by Christopher "Spinal Tap" Guest, it stars homme du jour Chris O'Dowd. What could possibly go wrong with Family Tree? I've just watched the first episode and I'm totally thrown. It is clearly intended to be a comedy, but so far the laughs are painfully thin on the ground. Though this may just be me. Previewers who I am usually in step with seem to be garlanding Family Tree with plaudits, while I stand at the side, politely not getting it.
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