Ricky Gervais gives us a little lecture after curtain call tonight about taking offence. Laughter is always good; no one’s getting hurt – that kind of thing. But, not for the first time, it’s a specious argument, setting up various straw men to represent those of us who might demur from his boorish comedy. I’m not suggesting his jokes about “dwarves”, “disabled creatures” and all the age-old targets of abuse will lead directly to hate crimes. I am suggesting they’re operating to a comic standard more associated with the playground than the standup stage.
It’s all a bit sad. Gervais is a clever chap, and a compassionate one, towards animals at least. But he’s convinced himself that anti-woke is a rebellious pose to strike – then convinced himself again that juvenile bants represents the best way to stage that rebellion. And so for punchlines we get African babies with Aids, sweatshop children whose mums get raped, and Gervais’s fictional limbless son being called “you little fucking grub”. If we don’t laugh, we’re “fragile” and “scared of words” – which Gervais paints here as a betrayal of millennia of “survival of the fittest” human evolution.
Cue the ostensible point of Armageddon: to imagine how it all might end for our “one species of narcissistic ape”. Gervais considers that prospect with equanimity: no lover of humanity he. But the theme is secondary to his battery of crude gags about immigrants, homelessness and, ho hum, Chinese people eating dogs. Throw in a few gags about his penis size from the 61-year-old, and the descent from the salad days of The Office is near-complete.
The shame is that there’s ample room in comedy to tease at woke over-earnestness and the contradictions of modern political correctness. With his jokes about the overuse of the word “fascist”, say, or a devious one about so-called cultural appropriation, Gervais shows how good he could be if Armageddon’s spirit were curious and engaged rather than macho and smug. He promises, tongue firmly in cheek, to find a justification for the worst jokes here before taping for Netflix. Might I suggest simply writing better ones?
At Manchester Apollo on 7 December. Then touring until 15 December.
