Kerry Godliman

Ahead of the first episode of his latest C4 offering, Derek, Ricky Gervais claimed that releasing a new TV show was like 'landing in Normandy and feeling the bullets rain down'. Now, I'm not going to suggest Ricky has been spending a bit too much time in Hollywood, but does he seriously think he suffers for his art like World War II troops suffered on those beaches? It's all very worrying.

The only reason Derek isn't the most schmaltzy and emotionally manipulative programme I've ever seen is because Simon Cowell got there first. But then, Ricky has been displaying a siege mentality lately that would make even Sir Alex Ferguson blush.

For someone who professes not to care what people think, he's spending an awful lot of time on Twitter retweeting praise for Derek from starstruck followers who probably only tweeted in the first place in the hope that he would retweet it. Stranger still, Ricky and his showbiz chums have decided the 'knives are out' in the industry, particularly among the nation's TV critics. I've asked around and the general feedback is no such vendetta exists.

Sure, there is bemusement that Ricky appears to feel he has divine immunity from criticism - ironic really, given that when he's feeling in a particularly trolling mood Ricky likes to tell people God doesn't exist.

Most critics actually reacted fairly favourably to the pilot episode of Derek, which makes Ricky's decision to come out fighting now all the more baffling. Unless of course the bravado is a smokescreen to disguise the fact that a) Derek isn't really that controversial and b) the full series isn't really that good. It's by no means the worst programme I have ever seen.

There are some gentle laughs to be had. Kerry Godliman is superb as Hannah, the hybrid of Tim and Dawn from The Office, who runs the care home. And Karl Pilkington is fabulous at being Karl Pilkington in a bad wig as Dougie the caretaker. It is also refreshingly free of awkward celebrity cameos - although with Ricky's track record we can't rule out Michael Parkinson popping up in episode six trying to sell life insurance to the home's OAP residents.

Derek though takes schmaltz too far. It's basically a half-hour version of that pet charity campaign that featured a shaggy old dog shivering in the rain whimpering, 'Nobody wants you when you're old'. But instead of appealing for cash, Ricky is seeking credit. He'd love to be lauded for bravely tackling dangerous issues, when all he's really doing is throwing up a series of fairly obvious and nauseatingly sentimental crowd-pleasers with a side order of mawkish piano music.

No one is going to knock him for saying kindness is magic, or standing up for autistic people, or being nice about old people, or giving da yoof a second chance, or raging against busybody council bureaucrats. But he's hardly taxing himself - or us - here.

He's writing by bumper sticker. And while it might be magical for Ricky's ego if we were to continue to kindly avoid the massive elephant in that care home sitting room, I really can't bring myself to do it.

Because the simple fact is this. As well as being written by, performed by, directed by and edited by Ricky Gervais, Derek is also spoiled by him. His hammy performance as Derek Noakes is the biggest letdown of the entire show. Moreover, as a character, Derek is the least believable and least interesting thing in it.

If he didn't show up in the second series I don't think the show would suffer for it. I'd even go so far as to call any enforced absence a kindness.

Episode two of Ricky Gervais's odd little series and some characters feel indispensable.

Kerry Godliman who plays care home manager Hannah, is the beating heart of the piece - whether she's organising Derek's 50th birthday party or taking a teenage girl who's doing community service under her wing.

Other characters - notably Kev (David Earl) the sex addict with revolting personal habits who doesn't even live in the care home anyway - is what the fast forward button on your telly remote was made for.

Ricky Gervais is declining to play safe with his latest bittersweet comedy, if comedy is the right term. Comedy drama? I don't know. Perhaps there is a new genre here. Either way Derek (Wednesday, Channel 4) is about a man with learning difficulties who works in an old people's home. And you don't laugh at Derek, you laugh with him.

He may have a slack jaw and bad haircut but he is sympathetic and kind. In some ways he reminds me of the Peter Sellers character in Being There: the idiot savant who stumbles on profound truths, or at least says things which make you wonder a little (such as "Why aren't pigs called hamsters?").

As with The Office and Extras there are poignant moments. And there is pathos, too. The documentary style used in those earlier shows is also deployed here, with characters giving little one-to-one interviews away from the others. Hannah (Kerry Godliman) as the care worker running the home provides a necessary naturalistic balance to the grotesques around her.

Karl Pilkington plays a stroppy version of himself as the caretaker Dougie (in real life Pilkington has a deep suspicion of old people). And a new character has been introduced since the pilot last year: the sex-obsessed, trainwreck Kev (David Earl). Kev is Derek's friend, and as Hannah said: "If it weren't for Derek, Kev would have ended up dead in a skip."

When an accountant from the council came to inspect the home with a view to cutting its budget there were bound to be awkward moments - this was, after all, a comic device that echoed all the way back to the health inspector episode of Fawlty Towers - but I didn't see the Kev appearance coming. Bustled out of the way when the accountant arrived, he had taken his clothes off and gone for a "quick nap" in one of the beds while the elderly resident was still in the room.

In his stand up shows Gervais sometimes teases his audience about their nervousness at his politically incorrect jokes. It's OK, he implies, it is safe to laugh because I'm being postmodern and ironic. This territory is slightly less safe - laughing at the people laughing at Derek - but it is, nevertheless, still safe to laugh.

It divided opinion when it debuted last April but there's a charming, ingenuous quality to the offbeat humour in this new comedy series from Ricky Gervais. He stars as Derek, a vulnerable adult working in an old people's home, who reckons he's the luckiest man in the world, surrounded by all of his 'favouritest' people, including long-suffering best friend Dougie (Karl Pilkington) and the home's manager, Hannah (Kerry Godliman). The laughs are bittersweet and there's a poignant truth beating at the heart of the story - the council is looking to cut its budget, which means Derek's happy home faces the chop.

Kerry Godliman on working with Ricky Gervais on Derek

"After seeing Derek, another comic said to me 'well, lucky you! That's your ticket out isn't it?'" Kerry Godliman smiles, a little awkwardly, over a cup of tea.

Last year's pilot episode got a mixed reception, so many were surprised when Ricky Gervais's comedy-drama about a retirement home worker with learning difficulties was commissioned for a full series. Yet here it is, starting a run of six episodes. Gervais writes, directs and stars as sweet-natured, animal-obsessed, autograph-hunting Derek Noakes. Gervais's regular sidekick and stooge Karl Pilkington reprises his role as caretaker Dougie, while Kerry Godliman is the standout performer as workaholic manageress Hannah. This opening episode finds Broadhill care home's future under threat from council cuts. Hannah takes inspectors on a guided tour but her efforts to impress are hampered by tadpoles in the bathroom and a naked guest in one of the beds, leaving the ragtag team struggling to prevent the home's closure. There are tender moments and its heart is in the right place, but the end product is misjudged. Much of the acting is awkward, while the script attempts to wring laughs out of bad wigs, sexual innuendo and gratuitous swearing. You can't help feeling it was Gervais's past reputation and celebrity status which got this made, rather than the quality of the show.

Tasteless? No. Pointless? Possibly. It's hard to believe, after last year's misfiring pilot, that Derek would have got a series commission without Ricky Gervais's involvement.

Shattered nuts and well-used sledgehammers litter the scene of this strange comedy-drama mock-doc: telling trumps showing every time, and the converted cover their ears while the preacher drones on about tolerance over a cloying piano soundtrack.

For the uninitiated, Derek tells the story of the eponymous innocent savant (Gervais), a slightly slow but tender-hearted care worker in a retirement home, misunderstood by the outside world but loved by those who take the trouble to get to know him. In this week's opener, said retirement home is slated for closure by the council. Derek and chums Dougie (Karl Pilkington) and Kev (David Earl) join home manager Hannah (the excellent Kerry Godliman) in taking some direct action.

No one can doubt Derek's good intentions, but it owes its existence to a man desperate to prove he's not who we think he is. And as for the comedy? Well, with apologies to Oscar Wilde, the final scene is so hilariously sappy that you'd need a heart of stone not to laugh.

Ricky Gervais shouldn't have taken the title role (Link expired)

Kerry Godliman and Karl Pilkington shine in the new series however Ricky Gervais shouldn't have taken the title role.

Following last year's pilot (a pilot that should have been shot out of the sky with a shoulder-launched rocket), here's an entire series focusing on the "childlike" and "innocent" retirement-home helper, lazily played by Ricky Gervais as a hunched, gabbling gurner with a comedy combover. This week, the staff, including Derek's best friend Hannah (Kerry Godliman - much the best thing in this), confront a stuffy suit, whose swingeing budget cuts are threatening the old people's home. Oh happy day.

Kerry Godliman: Controversy about Derek is annoying

Derek star Kerry Godliman has said criticism of the comedy show is an 'annoying distraction'.