1
Hello.
Hello! How you doing?
Great.
Thank you.
Wow. Calm down.
Shut the fuck up.
Thank you. What a lovely welcome.
I'm gonna try my hardest tonight.
You're thinking, "Relax, we've had
our money's worth just seeing you."
What? You're a legend. Shut up!
What is he?
I'm not a god.
I'm just an ordinary guy, you know,
going round talking to people
sort... sort of like Jesus...
in a way... but better.
Well, I've actually turned up. So...
Thank you and welcome
to my new show, Humanity.
I don't know why I called it that.
I'm not a big fan.
I prefer dogs... obviously.
Dogs are better people than people,
aren't they?
They're amazing, dogs.
They're our best friends.
They guard us, they guide us.
There's medical detection dogs
that can smell if you've got...
AIDS.
I'm not a doctor...
but their noses are a thousand times
more sensitive than ours, so they go,
"Cor, you're well HIV! Fuck!" You know?
And you go,
"You can smell AIDS on someone?"
Yeah.
"Why didn't you smell it on the bloke
I brought home last night,
you fucking idiot?"
They did the first three billion years
by themselves,
evolution and all that.
Then we got involved
and did some selective breeding.
Getting them how we wanted,
to do jobs for us.
Bit stronger, faster, whatever.
They're great at the jobs
they're bred to do.
They love the job they're bred to do.
They're genetically hardwired
to love that behavior.
Although, the Rhodesian Ridgeback
was bred to hunt lions.
I can't help but think it was
a shock to it when it found out.
So we've got all the pedigrees
for miles around.
A big passing-out parade.
There's a bloke with a white coat
and a clipboard.
He goes, "Right, dogs!"
They go, "What?"
"Who wants to know what job they got?"
"We all do. We all do."
"Okay, Labradors."
"Yeah?"
"Do you like carefully bringing back
dead ducks?"
"Yeah?"
"That's your job."
"Amazing. That is amazing.
That is my favorite job.
That is my favorite job."
"Jack Russells?"
"
"
-"Yeah!"
-"That's your job."
"Fuckin' hell.
Best day ever! Best day ever!"
"
"
"Do you like being carried around
by elderly homosexuals?"
-"Yeah."
-"That's your job."
That's your job.
"Ridgebacks?"
"Yo!"
"You're hunting lions."
"What?"
"You're hunting lions."
"Fuck off!"
-"Yeah, you are."
-"No, we're not.
Look, lions?
We'll get fucking mashed!
Why can't the Rottweilers hunt lions?"
"They're shaking babies."
Good boy!
Good boy! You shake that baby if you want.
Good boy!
Cheers.
This is my first new stand-up
for seven years,
if you don't count the Golden Globes.
Which you shouldn't.
The Golden Globes.Very different.
God, a different vibe.
Two hundred million people watching.
And it's live.
Big thrill.
But with that many people watching,
there's a bit of stick.
Everyone's different,
everyone's a blogger.
Everyone goes, "I was offended."
"
-"He said an horrible thing."
"He said loads of horrible things."
"Yeah, but that was a thing
that I care about."
That's the thing about offense,
it's about personal feelings.
I don't care about the backlash.
"Comedian in hot water."
You know?
My girlfriend, Jane, she worries,
and she reads things.
"What have you said?"
"Don't worry.
They won't come to the house. Fuck 'em."
So I wind her up.
I pretend I'm gonna say much worse things
than I ever would.
I have to make up worse jokes
than I actually...
Just to scare my girlfriend.
When I do the Golden Globes,
we go out about a week before.
It's in LA. We fly out.
I'm writing jokes
as the ceremony approaches.
They release more presenters.
I take my pick.
"I got a good intro for them. Yeah. Mel Gibson? I'll introduce him, yes."
About three days before this last one,
just to wind Jane up, I said,
"I got a good intro."
She went, "What?"
I said, "Bill Cosby would make
our next presenter sleep on the couch.
Please welcome Helen Mirren!"
I didn't do it.
She said, "You won't do that?"
I said, "No."
Next day, I got her again.
I said, "Is this too much?"
I said, "Not even Bill Cosby
carries enough tranquilizer
to bring down
this next magnificent beast.
Please welcome Melissa McCarthy!"
I didn't do it! I would never...
I'd never... tell a joke like that.
It's horrible.
I was just doing it to annoy Jane.
I'd never even...
think... of that,
so don't...
Even on the day, on the way
to the red carpet, in the limo,
I said, "I'll startwith
a funny one-liner.
An old-fashioned joke."
She went, "What?" I said,
"What did the deaf, dumb and blind
orphan get for Christmas?"
Jane went, "I don't know."
I said, "Cancer."
I didn't do it, so...
you're getting offended at a joke
that doesn't exist, so...
I'd never say that in public, so...
To anyone who mattered, anyway.
So, don't...
I didn't have to worry about
offending anyone. It just happens.
The big controversy last time I did it
was a Caitlyn Jenner joke.
Outrage on Twitter the next day.
I mean a couple of people going,
"It was transphobic."
It wasn't transphobic in the slightest.
It was a joke about a trans person,
but it had nothing to do
with that aspect of her existence.
And that's the other thing
about offense.
People mistake the subject of a joke
with the actual target.
They're not necessarily the same.
I'll tell you the joke,
you make your minds up.
It's live, so they go,
"Your host for the 68th Annual
Golden Globes Awards,
please welcome Ricky Gervais."
They're all clapping,
the actors are smiling at me.
Nervously. It's brilliant, right?
So, I just go,
"Relax, I'm gonna be nice tonight.
I've changed.
Not as much as Bruce Jenner,
obviously."
And I go,"Now Caitlyn Jenner, of course."
And what a year she's had.
Became a role model
for trans people everywhere,
bravely breaking down barriers
and destroying stereotypes.
She didn't do a lot for women drivers..."
That's a clever joke. I'll tell you why.
Right?
It's layered. No, listen, right?
The subject of that joke is stereotypes.
I'm playing with the notion
of stereotypes.
I start by saying she's a real woman,
a liberal, progressive attitude.
Then if she's a real woman,
I hit them with
the old-fashioned stereotype.
She must be a bad driver, then. Right?
The target of the joke is a celebrity
killing someone in their car.
Let's not forget that, shall we?
A celebrity killing someone in their car,
running home and popping on a dress.
That's...
the target of the joke,
just so we're clear.
Okay?
She was interviewed a week later
at apress conference for a show of hers.
Now cancelled.
And...
one of the press said, "What do you
think of the Ricky Gervais joke?"
She went, "Maybe I should host
the Golden Globes."
And they tweeted that and @-ed me in,
because they want a celebrity feud.
It was clickbait. I rose to the bait.
Obviously...
I just sent back,
"Let her host. Just don't let her drive."
Another website that was in the room,
Entertainment Weekly,
they tweeted a different headline,
and they @-ed me in.
Their headline was "Caitlyn finally
breaks silence over Ricky Gervais."
I just sent back:
"At last. She always brakes too late."
Bring it on. Bring it on.
But I'm a considered comedian.
I like my jokes to be accurate
and my targets to be fair.
So I was engaging these people, saying,
"Why is it transphobic?"
They said, "It's about a trans person."
That's ridiculous.
That's like saying a joke about Bill Cosby
is automatically racist.
It depends on the joke.
But I'm willing to learn.
I found out my crime was
that I dead-named her.
I'd never heard that term
before a day after the Golden Globes.
And that was saying her old name, and even acknowledging she used
to be a man.
But she did!
I saw him on the Olympic Games!
He was a decathlete,he was in everything!
All over the place!
Shot put and pole vault.
He won a medal! He was famous!
He was on telly all the time, you know?
A big... famous... man.
With a huge... I don't know. I'm guessing.
Probably. He was big.
But I've learnt my lesson.
Now I know it's wrong.
I'd never dead-name her now.
But, years ago,
when she was a... man...
Years ago, I'm saying.
And she went to the... doctor...
and... knocked on the door.
The doctor went, "Come in!"
This is years ago.
I'd never dead-name her now,
but this is like...
a flashback before anyone...
You know what... so...
so, like, "Come in!"
And he went, "Hello, Bruce Jenner."
Because that...
that was his name... then.
The doctor-- This was years ago...
The doctor went, "All right, Bruce Jenner,
how you doing, you fucker?
You big old lunk.
How you doing?
Come here, you, you fucker.
How you doing, Brucie boy?"
And Bruce Jenner-- That washis name.
This is years ago.
Right? So...
Bruce Jenner went, "Yeah.
Yeah, not too bad, Doctor. Yeah."
"What can I do for you, Bruce,
you fucker"
And Bruce Jenner went--
That was his name.
Bruce Jenner went...
"Look at that."
The doctor went, "Come on,
Bruce Jenner, you know the rules."
He uses his whole name every time,
for some reason...
"Come on, Bruce Jenner, you fucker.
You know the rules.
You can't bring your big old
pole vaulting pole in here, mate."
Bruce Jenner went, "No, that's
not my pole,
that's my enormous penis."
"Well, seeing as it's your penis,
you can bring it in here.
But you should have left your shot puts
outside."
And Bruce Jenner went...
That was his name for...
fifty-eight years, I think.
He went, "No, they're not my shot puts,
Doctor,
they're my enormous testicles."
That's where I keep my testosterone,
and my spunk, and shit, right?
And the doctor went, "Oh yeah.
That makes perfect--
I'm a medical man. You're a big bloke.
You fucker. How you doing, boy?
You're a big...
You're big,
and you would have a big old...
cock and... balls.
They're beautiful."
Bit familiar, innit?
"No, you must be very proud of them,
Bruce."
Bruce went,
"This is going to surprise you, Doctor.
I wanna get rid of them."
And the doctor went, "What"
"Oh, they get in the way."
"In the way of what?"
"Fucking driving, for one thing!"
So, I'm engaging these people,
and I'm saying,
"But I had to say her old name.
That's the joke. I say, "I've changed.
Not as much as Bruce Jenner."
Then I do the joke." But, no.
This is my second crime.
I say, she hasn't changed.
She's always identifiedas a woman.
That means she's a woman.
Fine, if that's the rules.
If you feel you're a woman, you are.
I'm not a bigot who thinks
having all that done
is science going too far.
In fact,
I don't think it's going far enough.
Cause I've always identified as a chimp,
right?
Well, I am a chimp.
If I say I'm a chimp, I am a chimp.
Pre-op.
But...
Don't ever dead-name me.
Don't call me Ricky Gervais again.
From now on, you call me Bobo.
I'm gonna have species realignment.
I'm halfway there.
I'm short, with short legs and long arms.
I stoop.
My back's getting hairier by the day.
I've got fangs, like that.
I love nuts. I love nuts.
Once, I was at the zoo,
and people were looking at me,
so I just started masturbating, like...
So...
I am a chimp, right?
I am a chimp if I say I'm a chimp.
I've got to live as a chimp for a year.
Then have hormones,
get me all nice and hairy.
That'd be lovely.
I'm gonna stay a male chimp...
so I can keep all that, right?
Male, heterosexual chimp.
Keep the same girlfriend.
Jane would be happy. She loves me,
she loves chimps, so... You know.
I reckon that's got to be easier for a man to turn into a chimp,
we're so close, than for a man
to turninto a woman, in many ways.
A bit of hair, and a top lip like that,
as opposed to your cock and balls
ripped off...
and a hole gouged out, into--
I'm not a doctor!
But that is...
the gist of it.
I know which one I'd rather have done.
I'm not saying chimps are better
than women. No way.
Right
I can't see you, but, to me,
every single one of you is equal...
to a chimp. So...
So, I'd have all that done, hair and that.
I'd do all that, all the...
I'll retain the ability to speak English.
Like in emergencies. I'm talking to Jane,
she's going, "What is it?"
"What is it, Bobo?"
"You left the fucking oven on!
There's a fire!"
Are you saying that if Caitlyn Jenner
was being chased by a wolf,
and there was a big fence
but she had a long pole,
she'd... revert.
She'd be over that fucking...
Easy.
So I'd have all that done. Top lip.
Doing all that. Right?
I'll be legally a chimp.
I'll be well... properly chimped-up.
I'll be able to use chimp toilets!
I'll be walking along,
holding Jane's hand. "Come on, Bobo."
Right? We don't hold hands now.
I don't know why she's all over me
now I'm a chimp.
But we'll be all in love.
Maybe matching jumpers.
"Come on, Bobo." In love. Just two...
Like that.
Then, if a bigot in a van slows down
and goes,
"That's fucking disgusting."
I'll fling shit at him and run up a tree.
And that's why that joke
isn't transphobic. So...
Cheers.
So, humanity.
What is humanity?
What are we?
Well, we've touched upon it there.
We're great apes.
Not metaphorically!
We're literally great apes.
We are 98.6% genetically identical
to a chimpanzee.
We're closer to chimps
than chimps are to gorillas.
We left our common ancestor
about six million years ago.
We have the same life cycle.
Same as any other animal. Which is...
our parents mate...
we're born...
we grow...
we mate...
our parents die...
our friends die...
and then we die.
Now...
my seven-year-old niece
didn't like hearing that.
But I said, "You've gotta learn.
Stop crying."
I said, "You're seven.
You know... today.
So...
Any more grizzling
and this party's cancelled, so..."
Let's take the first of those. Birth.
It's odd, because a human is born
before the end
of its natural gestation period.
I mean, because of our evolution,
our brain is so big,
we have to get that huge head out early.
That's why the skull
is in parts and supple.
Then we go on gestating outside the womb.
That's why we're so useless.
Look at other mammals.
A giraffe is walking along.
It goes, "I'm proper pregnant."
Right?
I'm gonna have a baby giraffe right here.
Yeah, there it is.
See you later.
And the baby goes,
"Mum!" It's got to be fucking ready.
We're... we're helpless, right?
Just think, nine months we're growing
in this perfect environment.
Everything's...
It's like being
in a little Kate Bush video, right?
Then, suddenly, you're being squeezed
out of an hole near an ass.
You're covered in shit, there's screaming.
You go, "I can't breathe." Someone goes,
"Yes, you fucking can!"
The first one second of lifeon Earth.
You don't know where you are.
You can't choose where you're born.
I wasborn in Whitley Estate
in Reading, right?
I wouldn't have chosen that.
I'd have chosen Hampstead.
I did choose Hampstead.
It just took45 years to be able
to afford it.
Very different. Very different,
my upbringing to how I live now.
Now I live a privileged life.
Hampstead is ridiculous.
It's a rarefied place.
It's like the grandchildren
of poets and painters
and me, new money, right?
But, growing up, it was tough!
I don't know about now, but in my day,
my estate was rough and scary.
It felt like wildlife.
I was weak and vulnerable.
There was danger round every corner.
My school was on my street
and I ran there every day,
so I didn't get mugged or molested.
There weren't many pedophilesin Reading,
the murderers had killed a lot.
But there was still a couple.
I moved to Hampstead. Oh my god!
There's no crime!
I saw a knife once in Hampstead.
It was a palette knife.
Just a bloke, oil painting,
in the middle of the street.
Broad daylight, no-one gobbing on it
or calling him "bender". It was weird!
I know my life has changed drastically,
It wasn't always like that.
As a famous person,
you read about yourself.
Gossip and Twitter and everything.
One thing kept cropping up,
even as I prepared for this tour.
People kept saying,
"He's out of touch.
He's so famous. He's rich.
He's mega-rich."
I am. Right?
I could have this place burnt down
for a laugh.
No, but they say things like,
"He's an observational comedian.
How can he say things that relate
to ordinary...
scum."
And I say..
I say, "Don't call them scum, right?"
But even the papers, they try and...
get around to it.
I do interviews and they'll always say,
"Do you always fly first class?"
I go, "No. Often private." Right?
The number of times I've answered
this question. They say,
"Do you know how much a pint of milk is?"
To make you look out of touch.
I don't know, but that's irrelevant.
Next time a journalist asks me,
I'll say, "I don't know.
But here'sa grand. Run and get me one."
Is that enough Yeah.
Another question I always get,
particularly with the posh Sundays,
doing a profile piece.
They're still trying to alienate you,
make you look different.
They say things like,
"You don't have children." I say, "No."
"Why don't you have children?"
Which is an odd question.
Why don't you have children?
As opposed to asking people,
"Why do you have children?"
Let's ask the fat lady in the leggings
why she's had eight, shall we?
Nine! That one just fell out.
That one didn't even touch the sides.
Or... disturb her cigarette.
That one just...
Go and claim for that.
People say it's selfish
to not have children.
How is it selfish to not bringa life
into the world
that doesn't exist on any level?
There's not a cabinet full of potential
ghost fetuses going,
"We want to be born!" Right?
But I've thought about it and there's
three reasons I don't have children.
Three main reasons and I'll share them
with you.
Three reasons.
One. There's millions!
The world's over-populated.
No-one's going, "Rick's not having kids.
We're gonna run out. Fuck."
Two. Kids are scroungers. Aren't they?
I mean, from day one,
it's all "me, me, me", isn't it?
"Feed me."
"Clothe me."
"Pay for my chemotherapy."
No...
No.
Not my problem, son. Not mine.
Luck of the draw, boy. Luck of the draw.
It costs the average household
in the West $200,000 to bring up a child.
And they don't want to pay you back.
They're not grateful.
They don't go, "Thanks for having me."
It's "I didn't wanna be born."
Even if they get a top job,
which they won't,
you'll never see that money back.
They'll just put you in a home, okay?
And my kid,
he'd be born into ridiculous wealth,
wouldn't he? So...
He'd be a little cunt.
A little Hampstead cunt...
running around with all the other
fucking little Hampstead cunts,
being all Hampstead and cunty.
"I'm a little Hampstead cunt."
Yes, I know.
"These are my cunty friends."
I know, it's obvious.
I can tell
from your little fucking cunty hats
that you're little Hampstead cunts,
you little posh Hampstead...
First, he'd know
he was a little Hampstead cunt.
"I'm a little..." Yes, we know.
Everyone knows, right?
He'd know that, right?
On the other hand, he'd know he'd never
live up to being as brilliant as his dad.
I'd say, "I worked my way up from nothing,
and you're just a useless Hampstead cunt."
He'd go, "Yeah." And that would
probably prey on his little mind a bit.
Eleven, twelve, he'd be naughty,
run with the wrong crowd,
try and get out from under my shadow.
Then he'd turn to drugs.
About 30, he'd come home,
and overdose on my Afghan rug.
Twenty grand, that was, right?
And as he was there, convulsing,
and throwing up his fucking lungs, right,
and with his little posh, high-pitched,
fucking death rattle...
his little fucking dying words,
he'd go, "Do you love me now, Daddy?"
No! No.
No, I never did.
That's why you'll never be born,
you useless, fucking junkie,
Hampstead cunt.
And, three...
I'd worry sick about him. You know?
No I would!I've only got a cat now
and I worry sick about her.
I check the door three times
when I go out, so she doesn't escape.
I put food and water in every room
in case the door shuts and she's peckish.
A human baby? Oh my god,
the responsibility of a human life?
I'd watch it sleep. You know?
We said how weak and vulnerable
they are.
Oh, my god! You perfect little thing.
Oh, you flesh of my flesh.
Now, go to sleep in your expensive cot,
like that.
Night, night. Sleep tight.
Don't let the bedbugs...
Dead. Yeah.
Just...
Why
It's just fucking dead, look!
Fuck's sake!
Fucking hell.
What the...
What a fucking waste of time that was!
Fuck's sake.
Embarrassing. "Jane?"
"
-"Come here."
-"I'm in the shower."
-"Come here."
"What?"
"Fucking dead already.
I didn't... Just fucking...
Fucking hell, Jane.
You call that a baby? That is..."
If Jane was out, I'd have to text her,
wouldn't I?
What could you...
"Baby's dead."
She'd come back. "What the fuck?"
I'd go, "Yep...
Forget the Pampers. LOL."
But even if it made it through
the terrifying cot years,
and it was a toddler running around
head height to my antique tables,
with their sharp edges.
I'd have to pad them so it didn't
run into it, cave its head in and die.
Then Social Services come round and say,
"Is this your child, Mr. Gervais?"
-"Yeah."
"
I go, "It's a fucking idiot."
I did think of adopting for a while.
A little third world child.
Because that would tick all three boxes.
One, I wouldn't be
adding to the population problem.
I'd be alleviating an existing problem.
A young kid born, through no fault
of his own,
into abject poverty, he would have died,
I can literally save his life, and give him a great upbringing.
Right? Two.
He would be grateful, wouldn't he?
He'd wanna pay me back, woudn't he?
Particularly if I let him know theother
kids in the village weren't so lucky.
They didn't... They didn't make it out.
Right?
I'd tell him that early on,
so he really bucked his ideas up.
I'd go, "Tunde, come here.
Come here.
Yeah, yeah.
Go and pop a shirt on,
you're not in Africa now.
That's better. Yeah.
Tunde, look-- Yeah!
Water straight out of a tap, innit? Yes!
Yeah. Yeah!
No, it's not free.
It's Hampstead, you know, but...
Yeah, course it's safe.
Safe, fresh drinking water.
Have as much as you want.
Have a bucket full.
Fresh drinking water. There you go.
Go and clean the car. Go on."
No, I'd go, "Look.
Remember all your friends
in the village back in Africa?
They're all dead.
A rich man didn't save them
and bring them to Hampstead.
"
-"Yeah."
"Yeah, I bet you do."
The good thing about them is,
they can start work
when they're about... six.
I just call up Nike and I go...
"Do you still make your stuff
in sweatshops?
Got a great little worker here, yeah. Pound a day's fine.
He's gotta start somewhere.
And, three...
if he ran round and caved his head in...
and died,
and Social Services came round and said,
"Is this your child, Mr Gervais?"
I'd go, "Does it look like mine?"
I'd go...
"This is Hampstead.
It's obviously broken in."
That's why I don't have kids.
Even though I don't have children
of my own,
people still show me photos of theirs,
like I give a shit.
I don't mean my own family.
They've given up.
I've got older brothers and sisters.
They've had loads of kids.
And their kids have kids,
and then their kids!
There's about 50.
I don't knowall their names.
I see them at Christmas.
It's all "Uncle Ricky!"
They know I've got a bit of cash.
They go through my pockets,
and then fuck off.
It's like being mugged by mice, right?
I don't mean them, I mean strangers.
I could be busy, I could be working,
like on the set of a TV or film
or something,
stressed, producing or directing it.
You get someone who's in for one day,
with one line, or a stuntman,
they introduce themselves.
"Good. Be with you in a minute."
Then they hover.
"
-I go, "Yeah! Yes. Yeah."
They go, "Working the weekend?"
I go, "Not filming,
but I'll be in the edit."
"I'm taking my youngest
to ballet lessons."
"Ah. Great.
Great."
"Yeah, she's eight."
"I've got a photograph."
I go, "You know what?
Show me it if she goes missing.
I'll keep an eye open in the woods."
You've gotta go through
the whole polite rigmarole, and go,
"She's beautiful."
It's gotta be long.Too short,
it's awkward. They know.
You go, "Yeah, right."
Too long and it's like,
"She's...
She's fucking beautiful."
It's a minefield, innit?
So...
I'm not out of touch. But I am spoiled.
There's a difference.
I didn't have any money until I was 40.
I've got the same family, friends
and values.
But I am spoiled.
Because opportunity and privilege
spoils you.
And it doesn't take much.
I'l give you an example.
When I first made it in America,
the next time we flew,
we're met by a bloke in a suit
and a thing.
And he just walked us past the queue
and straight out the other side.
The first time, you're horrified.
"Everyone's looking."
Pretending to be late, baseball cap.
Oh, god.
Next time we flew, I went,
"Where's that bloke?
I'm not queueing!"
It's quick!
When I fly to the States, I've got
a place there,
but I'm always working.
So, someone else is paying.
So, I go first class. BA.
It doesn't get any better.
Even if I was paying,
I'd still go first class,
but Jane would probably be in coach...
It's ten grand a pop!
That new Planet of the Apes movie's on.
She'll love that.
She'll be up for that.
But when someone else is paying,
I say,
"Jane, get up here with me." Right?
Front two seats...
They board us early.
We're on the plane
about 15 minutes before anyone else. God.
They bring round these snacks,
these warmed, caramelized nuts in a bowl.
Champagne. It's great.
It's like a day off.
No phone or anything. It's likea holiday,
flying to the States.
I could do without the safety video.
That's always a bit of a downer.
And totally pointless.
If you hit the side of a mountain
at 500 miles per hour,
the brace position does fuck all.
Imagine if that worked.
You're going down, the plane smashes.
You go, "I'll try it." You do that.
Ball of flames, you wake up,
everyone's dead.
You go, "Fucking hell,
that's amazing, that is!"
And they always use that voice,
don't they?
That calming, hypnotic voice,
like, "Nothing bad will happen."
They're saying horrendous things,
but nothing bad will happen,
because I'm using this voice, don't worry.
Things like, "In the event
of the plane landing on water--"
It smashes the fuck to bits, right?
They say, "In the event of the plane
landing on water,
your life jacket is equipped
with a whistle."
A fucking whistle.
So, the plane hits the water,
smashes to bits,
everyone's dead, except you, by a miracle.
You're bobbing around
in the Atlantic Ocean.
Four degrees, that water is.
You've got about 15 minutes
before hypothermia sets in.
Or you're eaten by a shark, or you drown.
You're hoping they've sent air-sea rescue.
You're going, "God, I'mgonna die,
I don't know what I'm doing!"
Hold on!
I mean, Air Sea Rescue...
I don't know if you've ever beenin
a helicopter.
O course you haven't. But...
They're fucking loud.
It's like having your head
in a washing machine.
You have to wear ear plugs and defenders.
Your teeth rattle. It's like...
Like that.
Over the Atlantic Ocean at night.
Never gonna happen.
If you crash, you die, right? But apart from that, it's brilliant.
Right...
I was flying Heathrow to JFK
just before Christmas, right?
Boarded us early, on the plane.
She comes round.
"Champagne in a wine glass,
like you like it, Mr. Gervais."
She goes off.
I go, "Have you gotany
of them warm nuts?"
She went, "We're not handing out nuts
on this flight.
A lady's getting on who's so allergic, even someone eating nuts nearby
would cause her to have a fatal reaction."
I went, "Oh, my god, of course."
I was fuming. I mean...
What's that got to do with me?
Why can't I eat nuts, just cause...
fucking... this woman will... die, right?
Nuts! How has she lived this long?
If walking by a nut kills you...
if being... just near a nut...
How has she never been near a nut...
before?
And how has she lived long enough,
having never been near a nut,
how has she lived long enough
to earn enough money
to be near me on a plane, right?
Honestly. It's...
And if being near a nut kills you,
do we really want that in the gene pool?
I mean...
I never wanted nuts more.
I felt she wasinfringing
on my human right to eat nuts.
And this is how spoiled I am, okay?
I actually had this thought.
I thought, "Oh, I wish
I'd brought my own nuts on."
Right?.
I thought for a second,
but that wouldn't work.
She'd get on and start blowing up
like a frog, right?
Like that...
And... die.
And someone would go,
"Ricky Gervais brought his own nuts on."
You know, right?
So I don't take my own nuts on.
Now, before I fly,
I have a shower,
and then I rub myself all over...
in nuts... just in case.
Then I go, "Can I have any nuts?"
They go, "No, sorry, this lady would die."
"Yeah, not a problem."
Lady gets on, sits down,
starts blowing up like a frog...
I go, "What's the matter?"
I touch her all over.
"What's the matter?"
She goes, "Nuts!" Right? And dies.
And I go, "Who's been eating nuts?"
I get off scot-free.
So I got to America,
I went on a chat show.
Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
And I told that story, the whole thing. It went well, audience laughed. Great.
Went out.
Next day on Twitter, outrage.
By "outrage", I mean one person going,
"How dare you?"
This woman goes, "I saw you onJimmy
Fallon, making fun of nut allergies.
My daughter's nut-intolerant.
How dare you?"
I go, "Who is this woman?"
She's tweeted 15 times.
She starts @-ing NBC and Jimmy Fallon.
I go, "What's this?
How many followers?
Twenty-three. Ignore it."
You know when you're being told off,
and they use your own words against you,
like a teacher going,
"So, you find so and so funny?"
And cause the teacher's really angry,
yes, you do find that thing funny,
whatever...
She said...
"Would you find it funny if my daughter
blew up like a frog?"
Yeah.
Yeah, you saying that... Yes.
If you said that at the funeral,
I would, yeah...
So, someone else gets involved.
Ohio Moms Against Nuts, right?
And she does a blog,
and they're talking to each other,
and she puts me in her blog
about how disgusting I am.
One filmed her little girl,
put it on YouTube, and sent me it.
I opened it.
Sweet little girl, seven years old.
And she went, "Dear Mr. Gervais,
I have a fatal nut allergy."
Delete.
Not my problem, right?
Ignore. Ignore. Ignore. Right?
But then one of them said something
that reeled me in.
Just cause I'm this
self-confessed Twitter police.
I try and explain to someone every day
what freedom of speech means,
particularly in the context of comedy,
and in the context of a joke.
A joke about a bad thing
isn't as bad as the bad thing,
or necessarily condoning the bad thing.
It could be anti the bad thing.
It depends on the actual joke.
And this woman said...
"You should never make jokes
about food allergies."
I should have left it, right?
I sent back, "I make jokes
about AIDS, cancer,
famine, and the Holocaust.
And you're telling me I should never
joke about food allergies?"
She sent back, "Yes,but the Holocaust
didn't kill children."
Well...
it did, didn't it?
It was horrible, the Holocaust.
Some would say as bad as food allergies.
"Didn't kill children..." Jesus.
It did kill children.
Hitler killed 12 million people,
many of them children.
I have to say, Hitler,
you couldn't make him up.
The worst human being
to walk the face of the Earth.
He is a crazy...
evil,
racist,
narcissistic serial killer.
Just terrible.
But...
if I was throwing a dinner party,
and I'd been slaving over a hot stove,
and I was getting everything ready,
and there was one place left,
and I had to... either invite Hitler
or that little girl with food allergies...
I know who'd ruin that party more.
Everyone's enjoying it. "Everything okay?"
"Ja, istyummy!"
Right? He's loving it.
I go, "Cheers, you fucker!
How you doing, boy?"
She's going, "I can't eat that."
Fucking hell.
"Who wants Ferrero Rocher?"
"Me!"
"All right. Here!"
"I can't eat them." Oh, fuck off home.
Right?
That's what the world's like.
People see something they don't like,
they expect it to stop,
as opposed to deal with their emotions.
They want us to care abouttheir thing
as much as they do.
It's why the world is getting worse,
and the world is getting worse.
I think I've lived through
the best 50 years of humanity...
1965 to 2015, the peak of civlization,
for everything.
For tolerances, for freedoms,
for communication, for medicine.
Now it's going the other way a bit.
Last couple of years,
just a little blip, maybe.
I'm not saying this because I'm old.
Old people say things like,
"Oh, everything was better
when I was a kid."
Course it was. You were a kid.
Everything's better when you're a kid.
Being old is the shit bit.
Whatever's happening, being old is...
I wake up these days, and I go,
"Oh fuck, I didn't die."
Gotta do it all again.
I'm usually hung over,
headache, liver pains.
I can't walk for the first five minutes,
'cause I've got no joints in my knees.
I'm getting fat again now, right?
I was thin till I was about 28,proper
skinny, like nine and a half stone.
Then I got a job, right?
And the next, sort of, 20 years
were what I call my eating years...
And I just got steadily fatter and fatter.
Until I reached a peak of unwellness
and blobbiness,
when I was about 48 years old.
There was one Christmas, I was at home,
lying on the floor...
And...
I was saying to Jane,
"I'm having a heart attack." Right?
And, honestly, my heart rate was like 130.
I felt nauseous, I had palpitations,
I was sweating.
Because I'd eaten eleven sausages.
True story, right?
I was like one of them snakes.
Like when you see a big, like...
python swallow a pig whole.
And then it's just fucked.
It's, like... it'll sit there for a week. It's like a duffel bag.
Just there, like that.
That was me, right?
I wasn't having a heart attack,
but it worried Jane.
She said, "You gotta look after yourself."
I thought, "You're right. 48."
So I started working out, right,
every day.
I didn't give anything up.
I don't eat meat anymore.
But I was
having 2500, 3000 caloriesa day,
including wine every night.
But I burnt it off the next day.
Just so I could do all that,
I worked out every day,
running, weight training...
I had more time on my hands
than the average person.
I had a gym in my house, I had no excuse.
I lost 20 pounds. It was great.
But now, I still eat and drink too much,
but I physically can't...burn off
the calories. I can't do enough.
Cause I'm so old and broken and tired.
So, I'm going to get steadily
fatter and fatter again,
and this time I am going to die.
I'm losing my hair.
It's getting really thin.
I know it looks great from there.
Cheers, but...
No, honestly, in a lift,
with that light directly overhead,
and the mirror, it looks like an x-ray,
right?
I'll have to buzz that off soon.
I'd never wear a wig, oh, my god.
If you wear a wig or a toupee,
and you think you've got away with it...
you haven't.
Everyone knows.
Everyone knows immediately.
My brain knows a wighas come
into the room before I do, right?
I could be at a party,
it'll go, "There's a wig in here."
"
-"Yes! There is, yeah!"
Spidey senses for the wig.
It's obvious.
The way they smile,
like nothing's wrong.
Hiya.
It's the telltale signs, isn't it?
I was put off wigs for life
by my Uncle Reginald.
Great bloke. He's dead now.
Died a few years ago. I was only little.
He went bald in his twenties.
Tragically bald. His hair fell out.
It might have been something like alopecia
But he was bald for ten years
into his thirties.
Turns up one day at our house... "Elvis! What is--"
I was about eight,
I said to Auntie Edna, "What happened?"
She went,
"It was a miracle."
They were lying! They were just...
Everyone knew he was bald!
But he'd embroiled his family in the lie,
so they had to lie as well.
They're going, "Yeah, it just grew back."
There's so much he wouldn't do, cause
he was terrified of the wig coming off.
We weren't allowed balloons at parties,
right?
Auntie Edna said, "Reg is allergic
to balloons." He wasn't allergic.
He was terrified one of us kids
would rub one on our sweater,
and his wig would fly across the room. We've got photos in the family album.
If he's at a wedding or a christening,
and he's holding a baby,
it's always at arms' length.
Like that. So it can't grab his wig.
It must have been on his mind
all the time, right?
It was the only thing he feared,
the wig coming off in public,
and this ridiculous lie being exposed.
He was in the Army, hard as nails.
He wasn't scared of anyone or anything.
Spiders, snakes...
cancer...
How's the chemo going, Uncle?
"Not a problem."
We've got a photo of him,
the last year, I think.
He was 75. It must have been
the last year he was alive.
It was a hot day. He was in the garden.
In his little trunks.
He was a wizened little man by then.
White chest hair. Jet black wig still!
Died in it, buried in it.
He's wearing it now.
A little skeleton with jet black hair.
Like Posh Spice for eternity.
But I knew that was gonna happen.
I knew I would get old and fat and...
ill and blind and deaf and...
shit myself and be pushed round
in a fucking bucket.
You're ready, because you're warned.
You know about getting old.
What they don't talk about,
so you're not prepared,
and it was a shock to me...
I only found out recently,
I'll share it with you now.
The distending testicles.
See, you don't know about it. But it happens in your fifties.
I wasn't checking them or anything...
I didn't see 'em for 20 years.
As a young man, they were pert,
and now they're like two plums in a sock.
I don't know when it happened,
but it was recently. They just...
And this is how I found out.
So, as I've been getting older,
and they've been secretly
stretching away...
as I've got older, I've got richer,
so my baths have been getting
more luxurious. Last year, I moved into a new house
in Hampstead.
Big bath. Big sunken bath.
South-facing windows.
I was in there the first night.
Lovely bath.
Sun streaming in, classical music,
this is the life.
I looked down.
And they're floating.
Right?
Now, I'd never dreamt
that testicles would float.
They seem like they'd be heavy.
You could tie things down with them,
and they'd sink. You know?
Most people never see their...
In the sea, you're in trunks,
in the shower, they dangle,
and baths aren't usually that deep!
That was my first thought. "Oh, my god,
I never thought testicles would float."
Then my second thought kicked in.
"Hold on, this bath's two feet deep!"
Right?
I'm sitting on the bottom, they're on top.
What's going on?
Right? And...
I looked,
and my testicles are now longer
than my penis.
Easily, by some way, right?
In fact, they'd created,
a little, fleshy sort of life raft, right? My penis was dry, just nestled, just...
floating on top.
Like that. Like that.
Just bouncing around.
I should have given it a little whistle.
I'm just thinking, "This is bizarre."
Fucking hell, right?
And...
I thought, "Maybe it's a fluke."
So I held them under the water
for a minute,
I let them go and they bobbed up!
They're really...
They're really buoyant, right?
Try it when you get home,
if you're in your 50s.
And a man, obviously.
Or Caitlyn Jenner.
But...
But the world is getting worse.
And I blame the beginning of its demise
on social media.
Because Twitter and Facebook,
that's where this ridiculous notion bred,
and became stable,
that it was more important to be popular
than right.
Everything was "like me", "agree with me".
It falls into two tribes.
"I don't agree with them,
so I block them."
And now, in this post-truth era,
people don't care about the argument,
they say, "Who's saying the argument?
No, they're not on our side."
It's ludicrous, okay?
And it also bred this ridiculous notion
we've always had.
My opinion is worth as much as yours.
Now, it's my opinion is worth
as much as your fact,
which is nonsense.
I get tweets from people saying,
"I believe the Earth is 6,000 years old."
"I believe you're a fucking idiot."
You can't have an opinion
on the age of the Earth. You can have opinions,
but not your own facts.
But it was all about being popular, right?
And even politicians
picked up those symptoms.
Politicians tweet now,
they want to be popular.
We had a Brexit referendum
cause they passed the buck.
They didn't want to make a mistake.
And there's a ridiculous thing of,
"Let's ask the average person
what they think."
Let's stop asking the average person
what they...
Do you know how fucking stupid
the average person is?
We still sell bottles of bleach
with big labels on
that say "Do not drink".
Right?
Let's take those labels off, right?
For two years.
And then have a referendum.
But it's not just politicians.
Even real news.
The news on TV says things like,
"Tweet us your news."
Don't let them tweet you the news!
-"I saw a Tyrannosaurus rex."
There was a big news story last year,
about a train crash that happened
a year before,
and there was an inquiry.
The results of the inquiry were published
and there was an expert on the news.
He said, "We've looked at everything,
and we've decided that the speed
of the trains
was a contributing factor,
so we're going to slow them down a bit.
Statistically,
this shouldn't happen again."
That would have been it.
But the guy went, "We asked the public
what they thought."
Then there was three banal vox pops.
First one said,
"I already pay 960 a year,
so I'm not happy."
The next one said, "It takes me 45 minutes
each way,
it's not good enough."
The last one said,
"I say it's better to arrive at work late
than dead."
Why is that on the news?
And when is that applicable
in any situation?
All right, Ted? You're in early.
Ted?
Oh, Ted!
We've been through this.
Remember I said I'd rather you arrive late
than dead?
But... the big enemy
is stupidity... right?
I wanna share with you
the most stupid tweet I ever got. Now, admittedly, when I first got
on Twitter,
I pushed my agenda.
I was an outspoken atheist.
Not to change anyone's opinions.
I thought it was important
to tell the other side.
There are still 13 countries where people are put to death for being an atheist.
I just wanted to say,
"It's fine to be an atheist.
It's fine to believe in God,
and it's fine not to."
That's all I was saying.
I realized I didn't have to tweet
about religion or atheism.
I could tweet a fact,
and that annoyed
just the right people.
I'd tweet things like "Happy birthday,
Earth.
Four point six billion years old today."
Someone would always go,
"We know what you're fucking doing."
This is a tweet I gotafter one of those.
And... it was all in capitals,
which excited me...
That's the sign of Twitter madness.
Mixed with anger. It's great, right?
I looked at his profile.
Sure enough, he's a gentleman from Texas.
He's a fundamentalist,
creationist Christian.
Which is fine!
He loves God. He loves God and...
fetuses, mainly.
He loves the fetus from conception
to when it turns out gay, and then he's...
Remember it's in capitals.
He's shouting at me.
Best tweet ever.
"YOUR SCIENCE--"
My science, right?
Science, by the way, is spelled
S-C-I-E-N-T-S.
Already good, isn't it? I mean...
He's obviously heard the word,
he took a guess...
Never seen it written down,
because it's not in the Bible. So he's...
"YOUR SCIENTS WON'T HELP YOU...
Well, it will.
It's helping him...
beam this little message
up to a satellite and down to me.
"YOUR SCIENTS WON'T HELP YOU
WHEN SATAN..."
Of course he believes in Satan. Why not?
He believes that God made the universe
in six days.
You're not gonna say to him,
"Do you believe in Satan?"
And have him say, "Bit far-fetched."
Why doesn't God kill Satan?
That's... what I'd ask him.
If I was wrong and I met God,
I'd go, "Oh, you do exist."
He'd go, "Yeah."
I'd go, "I've got
a few fucking questions, mate.
The first one would be,
"Why did you make chocolate kill dogs?"
Mental, right?
Also, if you hate homosexuality so much,
why did you put the male G-spot
up the arse?
What...
What is wrong with you?
Then I'd say,
"Why don't you kill Satan?"
And he'd go, "What?"
I'd go, "Why don't you kill Satan?
If he does all the bad stuff
and you doall the good stuff,
which you want...
I mean, you do want--"
"Yes, yeah."
"You could kill him if you wanted,
you can do anything, easy."
"Yeah."
"Why don't you kill him, then?"
"Because...
Shut up."
"YOUR SCIENTS WON'T HELP YOU
WHEN SATAN IS RAPING
YOUR BRITISH ASS."
And he's got a point.
Because if I die,
and I find myself in Hell,
being raped by Satan...
Science has pretty much let me down.
But it's this last line
that he just throws away.
The line he signs off with,
makes this the best tweet
I've ever received.
"YOUR SCIENTS WON'T HELP YOU WHEN
SATAN IS RAPING YOUR BRITISH ASS.
I'LL BE LAUGHING."
So... he's there too! He's...
So, he's a fundamentalist... Christian,
who's lived his life
by the Old and New Testaments.
He dies, he wakes up in Hell, right?
Which must be off the charts
on the scale of emotional trauma...
"Oh, my God, I'm in Hell!
Oh, my God,
why have you forsaken me?
I'm gonna be tortured for eternity!"
He sees me getting raped
and goes, "Ha, ha, ha!"
He's suddenly over it, is he?
His day's suddenly got
a little bit brighter.
And like he's not next, right?
So I'm getting raped,
right, by the Devil, right?
He's just there.
"You fucking atheist scum."
And I'm like that. "Yeah, whatever."
I assume it happens all eternity.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever."
Like that.
I might say, "Watch your hooves
on my testicles."
And he'd go, "Why are they so distended?"
And I go, "Oh, like you're Brad Pitt!"
You know what I mean?
Sorry, are we talking or raping?
Can we...
"You lying, fucking atheist."
He's probably bored.
"Fucking atheists. Every fucking day."
Right?
His little gargoyle comes up. "Satan?"
He goes, "What What?"
He goes,
"There's a fundamentalist Christian."
"Fuck this!"
He'd be on him like a ton of bricks!
So... I got that tweet.
I loved it. All I did was re
And just watch the fun, people piling on,
going, "Ah, loser!"
And he's fighting back, really witlessly,
saying things like, "Go fuck your sister,
you English faggot!"
That makes no sense at all. I forgot about it.
Went and did something else.
Few hours later, on Twitter again.
It's still all going off, right?
It's really funny,
I'm laughing at all the replies.
People saying things to him.
I'm scrolling down.
There's one tweet, directly to me,
from this woman. She says,
"You find rape funny?"
No! No! What?
No...
"Your mates find rape funny?"
No! Listen, right?
"You find rape funny?"
Listen, everyone! Listen, right? No...
I said to her,
"I didn't tweet that."
-She went, "You retweeted it."
-To show he's an idiot.
"But you must find it funny or amusing.
It's not a frivolous thing."
I said, "No, well, it's up to him,
isn't it? He can do it."
Now I'm arguing
with quite a nice, sane person,
who thinks this is mental.
But I'm fighting for his right...
to fantasize about me being
raped by the Devil.
Because I'm so conscious
of "freedom of speech"...
What a topsy
Although her opening gambit
annoyed me a bit.
Because she did that thing that people do.
She didn't say, "What, you find jokes
about rape funny?"
She said, "What, you find rape funny?"
The answer to that is, no, of course not.
No one finds rape funny.
Not even rapists find rape funny,
know what I mean?
Noone ever gives evidence saying,
"It was dark, he wore a ski mask,
and he was giggling."
That's never...
So... I sent back,
"You mean jokes about rape?"
She said, "Yes."
-I went, "Depends on the joke."
"-It fucking doesn't!"
I'm going, "No, it does! It does!
It depends on the joke.
It's about context,it's about content.
What do you mean by a rape joke?"
She said, "Even a joke with
the word 'rape' in it is unacceptable."
I said, "That's ridiculous,
it depends what the joke is."
I tweeted that clip of me
in The Office, going,
"I think there's been a rape up there!"
Everyone gets that because of the context.
And the target is a middle-aged man,
who's so narcissistic,
he'll say anything to win a silly game.
You have to understand the joke
and where it comes from.
I said,"Some jokes don't
punch up or down.
They don't punch anywhere.
They can just be a pun, a playon words,
that don't really mean anything."
A joke went round when I was a kid,
even adults told it.
I'll tell you.
A woman goes running
into a police station.
She says, "Help, I've been graped!"
The policeman says, "Do you mean raped?"
She says, "No, there was a bunch of them."
That is a rape joke, right?
So....
And I even said to her,
"No, I agree, in most cases, yeah.
Real rape jokes,they are fucking horrible
when the victim is the target.
Disgusting! I'd never tell those.
But it depends on the joke,
not the word or the subject."
I calmed it down, and they agreed
some jokes are worse than others.
She ended it by saying,
"Well, okay, I see your point,
but... still...
I will laugh at a joke
with the word 'rape' in it,
when no-one in the audience
has been raped."
I should have left it.
I just sent back,
"What a weird door policy."
You turn up to a comedy gig,
pay your money,
someone says, "Can I just
ask you a question?"
Yeah.
Have you ever been raped?
I have, yes.
You can't come in.
What
A lady says she won't laugh
if you're in.
Off you go.
That's what the world is like.
People take everything personally.
They think the world revolves around them,
particularly on Twitter.
I'm not tweeting anyone,
I'm just tweeting.
I don't know who's following me.
I've got 12 million followers.
They can be following me
without me knowing,
choose to read my tweet,
and then take that personally.
That's like going into a town square,
seeing a big noticeboard saying
"Guitar lessons", and you go,
"But I don't fucking want guitar lessons!"
What's this?
There's a number here. Right, call that.
Are you giving guitar lessons?
I don't fucking want any!
Fine! It's not for you, then.
Just walk away.
Don't worry about it.
I should say one thing
in Twitter's defense.
I use it as a marketing tool and for fun,
like everyone else.
But one great thing about Twitter,
for me, personally,
I'm very into anti-animal cruelty.
Years ago, it would take ages
to get 100,000 signatures on a petition.
Standing outside Tesco's or something.
That's the magic number,
because then it gets heard in Parliament.
I've been part of many campaigns
through Twitter
when we've got 100,000 signatures in days,
and the law has been changed.
Thank you to those who've retweeted
about animal cruelty.
It makes a difference.
Thank you.
But even something as clear and distinct
as animal cruelty,
You think no one's gonna argue with that.
Yes, they will.
They just wanna be heard.
I'll tweet something about
a bull being tortured
in a bullring for entertainment.
I say, "Ban bullfighting."
Someone always says,
"What about the kids in Syria?"
What?
Well, I'm not giving you a choice.
You can do both. I'm not saying,
"Throw that kid back in the hole,
there's a bull here!"
And there's one thing that I didn't want
in my head,
but it exists, so we have to deal with it
now that I found out, through Twitter.
There's a thing called
the Yulin Dog Meat Festival,
in China, every year.
And it's horrendous.
And we send people with money
to buy the dogs,
to bring them back.
It's a drop in the ocean.
They eat thousands over this weekend.
I tweet the details,
the petition, people don't really read it.
It's a knee-jerk. People say, "Racist!"
I go, "What?"
They go,
"We eat pigs and cows in the West."
Yep, we do. I don't but, yeah, I used to.
You're right, a pig or a cow
is worth as much as a dog.
It's not about the species.
It's what they do to these poor dogs.
What they do is torture the dogs first.
'Cause they think
it makes the meat taste better.
They beat them, they blowtorch them.
They even skin them alive.
And I saw this picture...
on Twitter
of the opening of this ceremony.
These two guys, in this Chinese square,
and they're skinning this dog alive.
It's screaming, they're laughing.
It's the worst thing I've ever seen.
I thought, "I've got to tweet that."
I tweeted the picture, with a petition,
and I just said,
"One beautiful creature,
and two ugly cunts, skinning it alive."
Right? And it took off.
Loads of retweets, it made the press.
I got one tweet back,
from a woman, that said,
"Is that language necessary?"
I should have left it, right?
But I was... I was incensed! I said,
"You're more offended by a word
than by an animal being
tortured to death?"
She said, "I just hate the C-word."
I definitely should have left it.
I sent back, "People who hate the C-word
would hear it a lot less,
if they didn't go round
acting like such cunts."
Thank you!
You've been fantastic! Good night!
Cheers! Thank you so much!
Thank you so much.
I hope you enjoyed the show.
I hope no-one was offended.
No, I really do! That's not the point.
I've always wanted people to know
they can laugh at bad things,
without being bad people.
I think it's my upbringing.
I grew up... in poverty, with nothing.
But the point was to pay your way
then have a laugh.
That was the men.
The women carried on working.
It was my older brother, Bob,
it was him who I first saw
making these dark jokes,
right in the bad situation,
as things were happening.
People were laughing.
I realized, "He's healing them."
That's what comedy's for,
what humor's for.
It gets us over bad stuff.
Right? Typical Bob story.
He once spent an hour in the pound shop
in Hayling Island, just asking the cashier
how much everything was.
Just to see if he could break
this poor man's will.
Bob was the first person I saw
answer back to authority.
The first authority you come across are
your parents.
And he'd get in trouble.
He got sent to bed.
But I thought he'd won the argument.
And he'd tease my mum.
My mum was a typical working-class woman.
As I say,
we lived in a shitty area, right?
And most of the houses looked like
a bit of mud, and a stolen bike,
and fence posts missing.
She mended the fence, turfed the garden
herself, painted the step.
She thought, "If it lookedrespectable,
we'd be respectable."
It was about reputation, I guess.
Bob would send her postcards
that just read,
"Is that pedophile postman
still reading your mail?"
And she'd take it, she'd go in,
and she'd be horrified. She'd call Bob.
"He saw it this time,
you must stop doing that!"
Even at her funeral... My mum died first, and my dad carried on for a year or so,
just drinking beer, then he went.
At Mum's funeral, we had different duties.
I did catering and flowers.
Bob went to see the local vicar.
That was a mistake, right?
We'd never been to church,
he didn't know us, we didn't know him.
So, he said to Bob,
"Tell me about your mum,
so I can say a few words."
Bob saw that as an opportunity, right?
So, Bob, with a straight face, said, "Well, she was a keen racist."
The vicar went, "I can't say that."
Bob said, "Okay, put she liked gardening."
He was trying to getthe vicar to say
something to make us laugh in church.
He didn't warn us.
And he did get something by the vicar.
So we're called Ricky, Robert-- Bob--
Ricky, Robert, Marsha and Larry.
Now, Larry is the oldest,
in his seventies.
Born in the war.
I always thought he was the sensible one.
First born, weight of the world
on his shoulders.
My mum said, when he was a teenager,
he got a job and gave her
the money to help out.
He's a stand-up guy, Larry.
So, Bob... gives the vicar the wrong name.
Didn't warn us. We're all in church.
Start of the funeral, we're all there.
Packed out.
The coffin comes down.
Guided by the vicar.
The vicar goes to his pulpit.
All confident,
with his little notes, right?
And he goes...
Eva leaves behind four loving children.
Ricky.
Robert.
Marsha.
And Barry.
And... we snort like that, right?
Bob's going...
Everyone realizes. We're all laughing.
We see Larry go...
All right.
And the church is like...
Every time we thought of it,
we'd see Larry go...
Like that, right?
Then we'd just start giggling,
just fits of fucking giggles, right?
Larry eventually started doing this.
And the vicar's thinking,
"What have I said
He'd put in a few things the vicar
didn't know
that set us off again.
Things that were just lies,
or slightly wrong.
My nieces and nephews started crying.
I'd come prepared with a pack of tissues.
They'd take one and hand it on.
Before the funeral,
I'd taken the tissues out,
written on them, folded them back
and put them in.
And each tissue said,
"Snivelling fucking bitch."
And they're sort of laughing.
So it was like a madhouse, right?
Everything the vicar said or did,
we allstarted fucking laughing! Right?
And you could see the vicar was
visibly shook a little bit.
He ended the funeral,
and he made a beeline for me and Bob.
He said, "Sorry, was that okay?"
Me and Bob went,"Fucking brilliant,mate.
It was fucking brilliant."
That's what I mean. We're allgonna die,
so we should have a laugh.
If you can laugh in the face of adversity,
you're bullet-proof.
Me and my brother, Bob,
had one simple rule, and that was
if you think of something funny,
you've got to say it.
Win, lose or draw. It might go well...
it might go badly.
But you've gotta say it.
And bear that in mind,
as I leave you with this.
Right...
So... we're all in the car one day.
Bob's driving. Packed in this car.
A little day trip to the beach.
We get stopped for a security check.
And there's a British bobby there.
And he stops the car.
Bob's at the window.
He said, "Where are we off to?"
Bob went, "Bognor."
He went,"Can you just pop the boot,
please?"
So he looks at that.
Looks in the boot, like that.
Back to Bob's window.
Gets that mirror on a stick thing.
And he starts just looking under the car.
And as he does that,
his helmet falls off, right?
And out of the helmet falls a packet
of 20 cigarettes.
And the copper went,
"Bet you always wondered what we kept
under our helmets."
And Bob went,
"I knew it wasn't fucking brains."