TV Weekend: King Ricky the First

HBO

Before watching Ricky Gervais: Out of England—the Stand-Up Special, I hadn't really thought of Gervais as a stand-up comedian. After watching it, I still don't. Which is not to say that the special is not entertaining; it's uneven but sometimes gaspingly funny. But as he did in The Office, Extras and (to a lesser extent) on his podcast, Gervais is less funny as a comic than a persona.

The persona he kicks off Out of England with is a variation on the one familiar to Office fans: Gervais as a self-regarding, clueless egoist. He begins a lengthy riff on cancer charities by talking about a charity gig he's just done in L.A. "So this is better," he continues casually, referring to the gig at hand, "because I get to keep all the money..." (He also gets in a dig at the U.S. economy: "We raised thousands of dollars. Or hundreds of pounds." Then, after slagging off American flyover country, he says, "No, I love the middle bits. I have a movie coming out.")

When he moves into more straight-ahead observational comedy, the results are mixed, though he gets off a great riff on an educational AIDS flyer he finds in a doctor's office on creative alternatives to a shall-we-say more risky form of sex. (SPOILER ALERT: A watermelon is involved.) This bit, and several others, are funny not just for Gervais' jokes but his unabashed joy in telling them—he breaks himself up giggling onstage, which in most comics would kill the joke but in Gervais' delivery just heightens the wait-'til-you-hear-this buildup. Fortunately, Ricky Gervais usually is as funny as he thinks he is.