The Ricky Gervais Show
The Ricky Gervais Show is a comedy radio show in the UK starring Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, and Karl Pilkington, later adapted into a podcast and a television series. Although named after Gervais, it mostly revolves around the life and ideas of Karl Pilkington. The show started in August 2001 on Xfm,[1] and aired in weekly periods for months at a time throughout 2002, 2003, 2004 and mid-2005. In November 2005, Guardian Unlimited offered the show as a podcast series of 12 shows. An animated series based on the podcast and adapted for television debuted for HBO in the United States and Channel 4 in the UK in 2010.
This article is about the audio programme. For its animated television adaptation, see The Ricky Gervais Show (TV series). For the unrelated live-action chat show, see Meet Ricky Gervais.It was one of the most successful shows in the early years of the podcast industry and received a "most downloaded podcast" certification from Guinness World Records in 2006.[2] According to the BBC, by September 2006, the podcasts of the series had been downloaded nearly 18 million times.[3] As of March 2011, the podcast has been downloaded over 300 million times.[4] A cult following for the Xfm radio shows and podcasts has ensued in the following years, starting since their original airings and maintaining a strong amount of fans, the most popular forum used to discuss the show being the subreddit "r/rickygervais" on the popular news and media platform Reddit, with roughly 150,000 members as of November 2023.
Running time
2 hours
January 1998 –
2 July 2005
Radio shows[edit]
Early shows[edit]
Gervais and Merchant first worked together in radio on the London-based alternative radio station Xfm London. Their show was broadcast from January to August 1998 from 4–6pm on Sundays, and only featured Gervais and Merchant (before their collaboration on The Office). The show's original format was more interactive, with features, guests, phone-ins, and audience interaction through listeners' letters.[5]
Return to XFM[edit]
Gervais and Merchant returned to Xfm in August 2001, after the first series of The Office had been broadcast, with Pilkington brought in as producer.[6] The show was originally just billed as Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, and Pilkington's presence was not acknowledged on posters or other advertisements. Gervais and Merchant would speak to Pilkington about his thoughts on whatever they were talking about. In 2003, Pilkington was added to advertisements for the show as he took on a more prominent role in the show. The last show for XFM aired on 2 July 2005, after which they chose to switch the show's format from radio to podcasting.
Series 1[edit]
The show ran between September 2001 and May 2002 before Gervais and Merchant went on hiatus to film the second series of The Office. Initially, Pilkington's on-air presence was relatively minimal. Gervais and Merchant only occasionally called for him to weigh in with his thoughts, while the two mostly talked to each other, with the links between songs comprising only about 30 minutes of the show's 2-hour run time.
As Pilkington's personality moved to the forefront, the talk portion of the show expanded to roughly an hour per 2-hour broadcast. While the show relied largely upon a stream-of-consciousness format, Pilkington made attempts to keep things more conventional by insisting on running contests and airing pre-recorded segments and regular "features".
Series 2[edit]
With the second series of The Office complete, Gervais, Merchant, and Pilkington returned to XFM in August of 2002 to resume their 2-hour Saturday afternoon broadcasts. Though Pilkington's name was still not being used in promotional materials, the format mainly centered on his contributions with Gervais and Merchant reacting to his comments, a format that would endure through the remainder of the radio broadcasts and podcasts, concluding in 2012.
This was the longest stretch of XFM shows, running 51 weeks until August 2003 when Gervais and Merchant again went on hiatus, this time to record the final episode of The Office.
During the year, Gervais and Merchant began saying on-air that Pilkington had become the star of the show and theorized that most listeners were tuning in to hear his anecdotes and perspectives. Pilkington, however, grew increasingly frustrated with Gervais's antagonism towards him, and over the final few shows, suggested that he did not wish to continue. Gervais and Merchant insisted they would not return if Pilkington did not agree to remain with the show.
Series 3[edit]
During the hiatus, Pilkington signed on with Gervais and Merchant's talent agent, and negotiated a deal with XFM to get Mondays off in exchange for continuing to do The Ricky Gervais Show on Saturdays. This was a frequent topic of contention during this run with Gervais repeatedly accusing Pilkington of being lazy for demanding an entire day off in exchange for producing the 2-hour Saturday afternoon broadcast.
The show began airing again in November 2003 and broadcast for 12 weeks until January 2004 when Gervais and Merchant went on hiatus to film series 1 of their new show, Extras.
Series 4[edit]
Gervais, Merchant, and Pilkington returned to XFM following the completion of Extras series 1. This time, they recorded only 6 shows before Gervais and Merchant left XFM for good. The show would later continue as a podcast, with no further association with XFM.
The Ricky Gervais Show
Comedy
- Ricky Gervais
- Stephen Merchant
- Karl Pilkington
English
Ended
5 December 2005 –
6 March 2011
3.6/5 