British stand-up comic, actor, writer, Office worker, and Extra Ricky Gervais opens his HBO comedy special and stand-up comedy DVD with a Darth Vader voice listing all his accomplishments; it takes a while.
It takes brass tea bags (he’s British, you see) to do that since you then have to deliver the goods. Out of England – The Stand-Up Special proves beyond a doubt Ricky Gervais delivers the goods. This is smart, tight, adult oriented comedy you absolutely must see.
Ricky Gervais opens Out of England – The Stand-Up Special with a wickedly funny and damn original routine on doing charity gigs. It segues into a series of fat jokes. Gervais’ are pretty funny even if fat jokes are the McDonald’s of comedy. He more than makes up for it with the going commando bit.
I especially like and admire comics who can go long without milking a bit. Gervais’ AIDS bit is brilliant, the best of which involves an AIDS prevention postcard. Few stand-up comics could get away with a Nazi versus Anne Frank bit but this British stand-up comedian does. He even segues into a Hitler and Nietzsche bit and actually pulls it off.
A couple of the bits in this HBO comedy special do show their age. The Falklands war bit is a good example. Fortunately, Gervais quickly moves on to better material such as his take on various nursery rhymes and, believe it or not, a great five minute yolk on humpty dumpty.
Gervais’ closing joke on Out of England The Stand-Up special is no great … shakes, but the childhood stories leading up to it are very funny.
Ricky Gervais comes back for an encore routine on strange animal facts that is not bad at all.
Out of England The Stand-Up Special
Ricky Gervais
Stand-up comedy DVD
HBO Studios 2009
72 minutes
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