Meet Ricky Gervais

Meet Ricky Gervais was a chat show written and hosted by the comedy writer and performer, Ricky Gervais. It was produced by Talkback for Channel 4 in 2000 (repeated 2003) after the first UK edition of Big Brother and only ran for one series on Friday nights.

This show aired throughout the time Ricky Gervais was also writing the first series of the highly successful, The Office for BBC2.

Guests were 'supposedly' interviewed by Gervais in the original TV studio chairs of famous people. Gervais was seated in Michael Aspel's Aspel & Co leather chair and guests seated in Ronnie Corbett's monologue chair, and Grandad from Only Fools and Horses' armchair. The guests included John Virgo, Tony Hart, Penny Smith and Sir Jimmy Saville.

The show regularly featured Darts assistant, Tony Green who would take his place as the general stooge and gameshow assistant. On the first episode, Gervais claimed that Tony came free with the original Bullseye dartboard, which he supposedly found himself whilst building the rest of the set.

Also, the show didn't have a theme tune so at the end of each show, Gervais asked viewers to record and send in their own mixes. Two of the episodes used a theme tune co-written and performed by Stewart Ferris.

It was co-written by Jimmy Carr and Robin Ince with additional material provided by Stephen Merchant and Stirling Gallacher (VT clock voiceover).

To this day, Ricky Gervais admits that this show was an embarrassment and has since been mocked even by Gervais himself.