Most comics test out their shows in rooms above pubs. The first time Ricky Gervais tried out his new show, Fame, it was in front of 400 paying punters at a mid-sized London theatre.

And while the material that he delivered that November night was a mix of the inspirational and the ordinary, it was an astonishingly together performance for a warm- up. Gervais, who had never performed stand-up before his first headlining show Animals five years ago, is nothing if not confident.

Now Fame is hitting the road, causing box-office hotlines to explode everywhere it goes (the first batch of dates had sold out as we went to press, but check Gervais’s website to make sure).


Fame promises to be more straightforward stand-up than either Animals or its successor Politics. A look at life in the shape of a look at life at the top. But, as with those shows’ ostensible topics, Gervais’s real best target is himself. It’s not always easy to know whether his boastful barbed comments about Comic Relief, lesser celebrities etc are bluff or double-bluff.

But that’s the fun of it: riffing somewhere between the unreasonable and the unacceptable, Gervais’s oversized comic persona is his fame and his fortune.


Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Sauchiehall Street www.grch.com; 870 0112626), Mon-Wed, and then on tour