Audio: Ricky Gervais on hanging out with Will Smith

Comedy trio Ricky Gervais, Karl Pilkington and Stephen Merchant have seen their programme The Ricky Gervais Show find a celebrity audience in the States. They talk to Newsbeat about their success.

He's a man unaware of how out of kilter he is with the planet, but Will Smith has turned 35 and is concerned by his lack of achievement. Coming across like a more obsessive Adrian Mole, he's without savvy, disgruntled with his lot - and fearful at the thought of doing anything about it. Yet what can you expect from a person who never received birthday presents when he was growing up because his parents thought August was too close to Christmas?

Will Smith's considerable comic skill comes in releasing our inner geek and it's our job to decide how far we should go along with his diagnosis of what's gone wrong with the world. But come on - which one of us wouldn't be enraged by someone who couldn't put the Police Academy movies in order? Oh, so that'll be just me and Will then...

Comedian Will Smith (not to be confused with the American rapper and film star) has co-written this new sitcom in which he stars as himself. Reaching the age of 35 has depressed him at how little he has achieved. After all, he says, Christ had died and risen again by the age of 33, an observation which gives you a notion of the size of Will's fragile ego. So he draws in to this scenario his fictional godfather Peter (played by superb Roger Allam) who each week will invite a special guest to advise him on some perplexing aspect of his life.

Will Smith is one of those people who's always seemed middle-aged, despite being young. But now, he's turned 35 and begun to stress... Such is the setup for Smith's new sitcom, also starring Roger Allam as Will's godfather, Peter.

Armando Iannucci's radio show is a bit of a teeth-clencher... let's examine the components.

It's a sort of chat show, with three guests, except they aren't allowed to chat. They are there to make jokes on topics, presumably of which they have had notice, chosen to reflect the week's events. On Friday these included national holidays (Get Carter Day, suggested Will Smith, to rare studio audience silence), unlikely headlines (E.coli has entered the Big Brother house, offered Iannucci), David Cameron choosing a Benny Hill song on Desert Island Discs (here Natalie Haynes began talking, bafflingly, about shoes), who in public life you would like to kill and why (Clive Anderson pointed out that killing people is wrong, but Will Smith insisted that he still wants to kill Alan Rothwell for stealing his Action Man, the one with a parachute).

Iannucci joined in competitively and did solo riffs on why he hates Apple (his iPod froze) and his local gym. Croquet figured largely, of course, so largely that on Saturday, after the repeat, the weatherman said it would be a wonderful afternoon for it if the subject hadn't already been malleted to death.

Could it be that none of Iannucci's guests had spent enough time thinking what to say? Is it possible that Iannucci himself, back in 1990, when he was putting together the genuinely revolutionary On the Hour (and sweeping aside the News Quiz team waiting to get into the studio after him), would have allowed this show on air? I doubt it.

I think he's bored with the news and with radio. He's exhausted. He's had an exceptionally busy and productive year. Another, during which he will also set up the BBC's new comedy workshop, lies ahead. He has given energy and intelligence to some truly major work. Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive is, alas, the dregs.