Edinburgh Fringe preview: Kerry Godliman

Godliman tells jokes that everyone can relate to, but they are much more than just trite observations.

There's the obvious danger that Alan Davies's new show could quickly descend into a swaggering knob-measuring contest, featuring as it does four celebrities talking about whatever they want to around a big table in front of a studio audience, until an appropriate show title presents itself. And indeed, the anecdotes come thick and fast in this first instalment, from Noel Fielding, Kerry Godliman, Andrew Maxwell and Jon Ronson. However, it's actually rather charming, Ronson's mistaken identity story in particular.

Radio Times review

If you've ever wondered what it'd be like going for a pint with Noel Fielding, Jon Ronson, Kerry Godliman and Andrew Maxwell (I know I have), here's a chance to find out.

With no agenda, no theme and a trickle of booze, this blank-canvas chat show aims to re-create the informal intimacy of a pub conversation, and it works really well.

Alan gives his guests plenty of room to waffle, and Noel Fielding is excellent value as usual; particularly with the story about how he disappeared on tour, and was found the following day working in a vintage boutique in Brighton.

Back at the O2 for the fifth year on the trot, the country's finest gag merchants congregate to shake a tin in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital's prospective new operating theatre. Among the assembled funny people here are Lee Evans, Jack Dee, Alan Carr, Paddy McGuinness, Warwick Davis and Derek's Kerry Godliman. It's three hours long, but worth keeping half an eye on the commercial breaks, traditionally a place for Alan Carr to pop up with some lightly mirthful advert hijacks.

News: Balham comedy festival line-up announced

The 2014 Balham Comedy Festival, running from July 11-19, has announced its line-up. Among the names confirmed are Susan Calman, Paul Daniels, Robert Newman, Phill Jupitus, Reginald D. Hunter, Tim Vine, Stephen K Amos, Marcus Brigstocke, Milton Jones, Shappi Khorsandi, Mark Steel, Richard Herring, Jeremy Hardy, Susan Calman, Kevin Day, Gary Delaney, Kerry Godliman, Tony Law, and Fred MacAulay with more performers to be announced.

Derek is a so-called comedy about a care home worker with learning difficulties. This self-indulgent vanity project attempts to be movingly bittersweet but is instead mawkish and embarrassing. Most of this penultimate episode was dedicated to a dead dog, while Gervais's eponymous character cried, gurned and mugged for the camera. As deceased pets go, it was no Norwegian Blue parrot.

The Office was a work of comic genius but in the decade since, Gervais's output has been on a downward curve. Derek is the trough. It borrows devices from The Office (the mockumentary format, the Tim 'n' Dawn-style romance to lend it heart) but uses them ham-fistedly. Gervais's patronising central performance is based on crudely drawn mannerisms and fortune-cookie clichés. Do we really need a multimillionaire to don a cardigan, cock his head to one side and tell us, "Be nice to animals" or "Kindness is magic"? The cast, especially the excellent Kerry Godliman, do their best with a clumsy script, but the only three-dimensional character was that dead dog.

Kerry Godliman interview

Kerry Godliman is stand-up, writer and actor, currently starring alongside Ricky Gervais in Derek on Channel 4.

The ​Kerry Godliman three minute interview

Kerry Godliman is stand-up, writer and actor, currently starring alongside Ricky Gervais in Derek on Channel 4. Martin Walker grabbed two minutes face time to talk Channel 4, Radio 4 and the Edinburgh Fringe.

The pilot episode of Ricky Gervais's comedy set in a retirement home provoked a firestorm. The series that followed proved to be Marmite, so it's a surprise to find it back for a second outing. Critics protest that it mocks people with learning difficulties because Derek, the careworker of the title, shuffles around with his lower jaw stuck out and asks childlike questions. Naturally, Gervais - who also writes and directs - denied any such thing, arguing Derek can hold his own against Baldrick, Father Dougal and Mr Bean.

Like The Office, Derek is a mockumentary. The difference this time round is it's not obvious at whom we're supposed to be laughing. The result can be poignant, especially the scenes with Kerry Godliman, who is magnificently understated as put-upon manager Hannah - sometimes almost unbearably uncomfortable.

Tonight Derek's father moves in and is soon batting his eyelashes at the female residents, to his son's horror. Meanwhile, new member of staff Geoff bickers with the caretaker (Gervais's pal Karl Pilkington in ludicrous wig and gigantic NHS specs).

Kerry Godliman & Holli Dempsey interviews

Here's what Kerry Godliman and Holli Dempsey had to say about becoming a 'double act', working with Ricky and the public reaction to their characters...