Post by Lisa-Marie on Jul 14, 2005 14:03:56 GMT
;D [glow=red,2,300]I am looking forward to this, I loved the office...[/glow] ;D
Ricky's follow-up to The Office is another comic hit
By Nicola Methven Tv Editor
RICKY Gervais's new BBC2 sitcom Extras is easily the most hotly anticipated comedy of the year.
How on earth could he possibly follow The Office with anything that didn't seem lacklustre in comparison?
So as I sat down to watch the first screening of the opening instalment yesterday, I was worried I was about to let myself in for a huge disappointment.
However, I'm absolutely delighted to report I couldn't have been more wrong.
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To set the scene, Ricky plays a character called Andy Millman - a struggling actor desperate for big speaking parts that never come his way.
In the first show he is working on a gritty drama, directed by Hollywood star Ben Stiller, about the Balkans conflict.
It is based on the true story of a man called Goran, whose family was killed in the fighting and who is present on the set to watch the filming.
Ever the opportunist, Millman decides that Goran could help persuade director Stiller to give him just one speaking line.
But when he slips in to his trailer he is alarmed to discover Goran staring morosely at a set of photographs.
Misjudging the situation, he asks if the naked woman in the picture is sunbathing - but she turns out to be his dead wife.
Undeterred, he presses on, even returning with £15 of Top Shop vouchers to bribe him.
Millman's best friend is Maggie Jacobs, another extra, played by newcomer Ashley Jensen.
She is desperate for love but also desperately dim.
Watch out for the hilarious scene where she is put off a potential conquest after noticing that he wears a specially built up shoe "like Herman Munster".
Trying to defend him, she tells Millman that her fancy man is the life and soul of the party. Millman retorts: "He's certainly the sole."
She had tried to chat him up in the first place by looking at his spinach and bean salad in the canteen and uttering the line: "No bowel cancer for you."
Stiller, meanwhile, is excellent at sending himself up as an egotistical, self-obsessed Hollywood big shot who knows exactly how much each of his movies grossed at the box office.
He finally shows his true colours by screaming at Goran: "Would you stop going on about your f***ing dead wife?"
This leads to a brilliant showdown with Millman.
Stiller informs him he's a "nobody" and booms: "Who am I?"
"Either Starsky or Hutch - I can never remember," comes the reply.
And when Stiller demands: "Is that supposed to be funny?", Millman snipes back: "You tell me, you were in it."
After making the show Stiller jokes to Gervais and co-writer Stephen Merchant that he had found the whole experience totally authentic.
"You've tapped into my very soul, we can never meet again," he told them.
Of course there are some similarities to The Office.
Just like David Brent, Millman is desperate for fame and recognition - and he is equally as unlikely to get it.
Also, some things are not particularly easy or comfortable to watch, while others are so painful they make you want to run away and hide. But while it was Brent who caused most of the cringing last time around, this time the honours are shared.
Maggie is a constant cause of pain for the audience as she commits enough faux pas to rival Basil Fawlty.
And still it is equally hard to watch.
At one point he is exasperated after a young boy running from soldiers trips up and giggles.
"Why are you laughing?" he shouts, as the child actor's mum rushes over.
Grabbing a gun from a nearby soldier he then points it at her head and asks the youngster if he'd find it funny if he blew her brains out.
The shocked child agrees that would not be amusing in the slightest.
The rest of this run stars Kate Winslet, Samuel L Jackson, Patrick Stewart, Les Dennis and Ross Kemp.
One episode due to feature Jude Law had to be put on ice because he had to pull out. (Due to filming commitments, dah-ling.)
However, Brad Pitt and Madonna have already been in talks with Ricky about appearing in the next series.
Gervais claims he is glad the show will be broadcast during the summer rather than the autumn because it takes some of the pressure off him.
He revealed: "We wanted to ship it out without fanfare."
All that remains now is the virtually inevitable row between channel bosses when BBC1 decide they want to grab the second series.
BBC2 boss Roly Keating is adamant that he's keeping it.
"We don't do nicking," he declares. "There's absolutely no suggestion that any second series would be on a different channel."
We'll see...
Extras is on BBC2 on July 21
Ricky's follow-up to The Office is another comic hit
By Nicola Methven Tv Editor
RICKY Gervais's new BBC2 sitcom Extras is easily the most hotly anticipated comedy of the year.
How on earth could he possibly follow The Office with anything that didn't seem lacklustre in comparison?
So as I sat down to watch the first screening of the opening instalment yesterday, I was worried I was about to let myself in for a huge disappointment.
However, I'm absolutely delighted to report I couldn't have been more wrong.
Advertisement
To set the scene, Ricky plays a character called Andy Millman - a struggling actor desperate for big speaking parts that never come his way.
In the first show he is working on a gritty drama, directed by Hollywood star Ben Stiller, about the Balkans conflict.
It is based on the true story of a man called Goran, whose family was killed in the fighting and who is present on the set to watch the filming.
Ever the opportunist, Millman decides that Goran could help persuade director Stiller to give him just one speaking line.
But when he slips in to his trailer he is alarmed to discover Goran staring morosely at a set of photographs.
Misjudging the situation, he asks if the naked woman in the picture is sunbathing - but she turns out to be his dead wife.
Undeterred, he presses on, even returning with £15 of Top Shop vouchers to bribe him.
Millman's best friend is Maggie Jacobs, another extra, played by newcomer Ashley Jensen.
She is desperate for love but also desperately dim.
Watch out for the hilarious scene where she is put off a potential conquest after noticing that he wears a specially built up shoe "like Herman Munster".
Trying to defend him, she tells Millman that her fancy man is the life and soul of the party. Millman retorts: "He's certainly the sole."
She had tried to chat him up in the first place by looking at his spinach and bean salad in the canteen and uttering the line: "No bowel cancer for you."
Stiller, meanwhile, is excellent at sending himself up as an egotistical, self-obsessed Hollywood big shot who knows exactly how much each of his movies grossed at the box office.
He finally shows his true colours by screaming at Goran: "Would you stop going on about your f***ing dead wife?"
This leads to a brilliant showdown with Millman.
Stiller informs him he's a "nobody" and booms: "Who am I?"
"Either Starsky or Hutch - I can never remember," comes the reply.
And when Stiller demands: "Is that supposed to be funny?", Millman snipes back: "You tell me, you were in it."
After making the show Stiller jokes to Gervais and co-writer Stephen Merchant that he had found the whole experience totally authentic.
"You've tapped into my very soul, we can never meet again," he told them.
Of course there are some similarities to The Office.
Just like David Brent, Millman is desperate for fame and recognition - and he is equally as unlikely to get it.
Also, some things are not particularly easy or comfortable to watch, while others are so painful they make you want to run away and hide. But while it was Brent who caused most of the cringing last time around, this time the honours are shared.
Maggie is a constant cause of pain for the audience as she commits enough faux pas to rival Basil Fawlty.
And still it is equally hard to watch.
At one point he is exasperated after a young boy running from soldiers trips up and giggles.
"Why are you laughing?" he shouts, as the child actor's mum rushes over.
Grabbing a gun from a nearby soldier he then points it at her head and asks the youngster if he'd find it funny if he blew her brains out.
The shocked child agrees that would not be amusing in the slightest.
The rest of this run stars Kate Winslet, Samuel L Jackson, Patrick Stewart, Les Dennis and Ross Kemp.
One episode due to feature Jude Law had to be put on ice because he had to pull out. (Due to filming commitments, dah-ling.)
However, Brad Pitt and Madonna have already been in talks with Ricky about appearing in the next series.
Gervais claims he is glad the show will be broadcast during the summer rather than the autumn because it takes some of the pressure off him.
He revealed: "We wanted to ship it out without fanfare."
All that remains now is the virtually inevitable row between channel bosses when BBC1 decide they want to grab the second series.
BBC2 boss Roly Keating is adamant that he's keeping it.
"We don't do nicking," he declares. "There's absolutely no suggestion that any second series would be on a different channel."
We'll see...
Extras is on BBC2 on July 21