Ricky Gervais teases TV retirement: “Stand-up is my favourite now”

Ricky Gervais has teased his retirement from TV, saying he stand-up comedy is now his “favourite thing”.

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In an interview with the Evening Standard, the actor, writer and comedian said he’d be happy purely performing stand-up, as he believes he’s less likely to be censored within that medium.

“If people said ‘There’s no more television any more’, I’d be quite happy with doing stand-up,” Gervais said. “It’s my favourite thing now.

“There’s no one to answer to, except the police,” he joked, adding: “I think it might be going that way. As long as you don’t break the law, it’s up to you.”

The Office star went to say that stand-up is “less of an art form and more of a science”, with the only rule being “say the funniest thing you can”.

“It either works or it doesn’t,” he said. “So you know: ‘that joke works, they laughed, keep that bit. They didn’t like that bit, improve it or lose it.’ After like 50 gigs the audience have found you your perfect hour”.

Comparing the experience to making films and TV shows, he added: “Even though I get final edit on TV and film there’s still 60 people involved.”

Gervais said he used to write his whole live shows before performing them, but now just takes a few notes on stage and reacts to the audience.

“I’ve got that sort of brain where I’d rather be doing three things rather than one, but now I’m getting older that seems more stressful. Stand-up I don’t have to worry about, you go up and do your best,” he said. “You don’t have to prepare, in a way.”

Back in June, Gervais was forced to increase security on his UK tour after receiving death threats.

A source told The Sun that Gervais has been “made aware threats have been made to his life” related to jokes he has made, with the correspondence including “disturbing letters”.

They added: “Ricky is very aware of the dangers and he can afford whatever security he wants, so he thought it was a no-brainer.”

It is reported that some of the threats came in response to Gervais’ Netflix special SuperNature, which was criticised and accused of being “transphobic” upon its release last year.

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