Ricky Gervais: Out Of England And Why Memorizing Is Important

Last night Ricky Gervais’ stand up comedy special Out Of England aired on HBO.  It was mostly funny and he was, of course, charming as usual.  When you take into consideration that Gervais hasn’t been doing stand-up on such a big stage for very long, I would say he did a great job.

However¹, what stuck out to me the most, perhaps because I am a comic, is just how often he looked at his notes.   For the casual viewer he covered it by walking behind a small podium on stage where he had his beer² (and his notes).  It was an old trick taught to me by Tommy Koenig.   Take a drink and look at the notes on your napkin.  No one is the wiser.  Cool little trick…if you do it once.  Ricky did it literally every 2 minutes.  It was distracting.  Even people who didn’t know about the trick had to be thinking to themselves, “Man, I didn’t know anyone liked Fosters that much³.”

The reason I object to it is that as a stand up performer it’s important to set up a feeling of being “in the moment”.  The performer is having a conversation with the audience not giving a speech.  Admittedly, my longest set to date was 30 minutes, but I made the whole way without looking at my notes once, let alone 15 times.

Listen, the audience knows that comic wrote the material in advance⁴.  The comic knows he wrote it in advance.   But we made an agreement to pretend like all of this material is coming out ether and being presented for the first time.   Ever time a comic has to stop and look at his notes it destroys the illusion.  The illusion is very imporant⁵.

I think Ricky Gervais is a very smart and talented comedic mind.  The Office (BBC version) was an amazing show.  Extras was an amazing show.  His special was great.  But I was disappointed that he did such an amateur thing in his show.  Also, I agree with some other people who said his stuff on overweight people was a little harsh⁶.

¹You knew with me there was going to be a however didn’t you.
²Fosters is Australian for cheating.^7
3For the record, Australians don’t like Fosters.  Just because it’s a tag line in Australia doesn’t make it true in Australia.
⁴But the one’s that don’t are adorable.  You just wanna hug ‘em.
⁵That’s why Guns N’ Roses made a two albums about it.^8
6Knowing full well that the first time I did stand up and the now defunct Boston Comedy Club that I did a few very similar jokes but I was 20 so cut me a little slack.
⁷Please excuse me for making a Fosters joke.  It was just so hard⁹ not to in this case.
⁸Use Your Illusion I and II, incase you were not following.
⁹That’s what she said.  Damn it.

Photo for thumbnail from mistersnappy.