Ricky Gervais: Armageddon is packed with Gervais‘ signature brand of sharp, often controversial humor, tackling topics like artificial intelligence, political correctness, family weddings, funerals, and, as the title suggests, the end of humanity.
It’s a show for fans of his biting humor and willingness to push boundaries. If you’re easily offended or prefer more gentle comedy, it might not be your cup of tea. However, if you appreciate Gervais’ brand of dark humor and insightful observations, you’re likely to find plenty to laugh at, even if you cringe at times.
Ricky Gervais: Armageddon is streaming on Netflix from December 25, 2023
* * *
[audience chattering]
[audience cheering and whistling]
Hello. Thank you. [clears throat] Thank you. Thank you very much.
Cheers. Thank you.
[man 1] Whoo!
No. Shh. That’s… You’ve…
Thank you.
[man 1 yells]
No, you know the score.
[man 1 yells]
Shut the fuck up.
[audience laughing]
Thank you. Welcome to my new show. So new, in fact, it’s still evolving. I’ve got bits tonight I haven’t done before, right? [audience cheering] If I ad-lib, I haven’t even thought it before. And I have some terrible fucking thoughts. [audience laughing] But you can’t help that, can you? You can’t choose your thoughts. They just appear. It’s too late. You have a thought, and it goes, “I’m a thought.” And you go, “Oh fuck, I thought that.” [audience laughing] And then, sometimes, the thought will go, “Now say it.” [audience laughing] And I say it, and… Netflix.
[audience laughing]
My last show, SuperNature, dropped on Netflix last year.
Um, big backlash, wasn’t there?
[audience cheering]
Big… Oh, big backlash. People going, “You can’t say that.”
You can. You can.
[audience laughing]
I did. Um…
[audience cheering and whistling]
Yeah, the inevitable backlash, which made it the most-watched special of the year, so…
[audience laughing]
I’ve learned my lesson. Um…
[audience laughing]
No, I have learned my lesson, and that’s why I’m going to be woke from now on.
[audience laughing and booing]
It’s about time. Well, I’m sorry. Well, I am woke. And now I’m woke, the first thing I’ve gotta do is change my Twitter bio. ‘Cause at the moment, it’s, like, a list of the shows I’ve created. But now I’m woke, I’ve gotta pop in the word “anti-fascist”…
[audience laughing]
…so people know I’m not a fascist, ’cause that is a big problem at the moment. Um… People come up to you and go, “Rick, have you been imprisoning journalists?” I go, “No.” They go, “Oh, interesting.”
[audience laughing]
They go, “Have you been gassing Jews?” I go, “No.” They go, “Pop it in your bio then, you silly cunt.”
[audience laughing]
[scattered applause]
So, yeah, I’m not a fascist. It’s an odd thing to declare, isn’t it, that you’re not a fascist? We assume, don’t we? You wouldn’t go up to someone in the street and do that, would you? “Oh, by the way, I’m not a fascist.” You know?
[audience laughing]
It’s like they protest too much. It’s like going into a school and going, “I’m not a pedo.”
“So just forget I even mentioned it.”
[audience laughing] “These kids are safe running around me. Don’t worry.” [laughs] “They can run around naked for all I care.”
“I’m not a pedo, so…”
[audience laughing] Of course, the word “fascist” has changed. Traditionally, the word “fascist” meant a member of a far-right authoritarian regime that uses militarism and violence to suppress individual rights. Now the word “fascist” can mean “liked a Joe Rogan tweet.”
So…
[audience laughing] …words change, yeah? And that’s part of the reason I’m gonna become woke. Words change, and I don’t wanna be left behind, you know. I don’t wanna end up like my granddad in the ’70s. Oh. He was all like, “coloreds” this and “queers” that. [groans] Although the word “queer” is all right again now, so… If you wait long enough, it just goes full circle.
Just…
[audience laughing]
Just be patient is my ad…
[audience laughing] So, yeah, you can… you can use the word “queer” now. You still can’t use it as a noun, only as an adjective. You can’t go up to someone and go, “You’re a queer,” but you can go, “Hear about Darren? He’s queer now.” [audience laughing] If Darren is definitely bent. [audience laughing] You can’t go around just slagging off Darren willy-nilly. Do you know what I mean? You can… You can get sued in this country for saying someone’s gay if they’re not, you know, which is a homophobic law, ’cause you can’t be sued the other way around. You can’t be sued for saying someone’s not gay if they are, which seems unfair, doesn’t it? Like, I could go up to Britain’s biggest gay and go, “All right, Elton.” All right?
And…
[audience laughing] He’d love that. He’d fucking love that. If that’s your game, you wanna be top of the pile, so to speak. Right?
[laughs]
[audience laughing] I’d go, “All right, Elton?” He’d go, “Yeah.”
I’d go, ♪ Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ♪
♪ Ha-ha You’re not a gay ♪
[audience laughing]
He’d go, “I bloody am.” All right? He’d go, “I’m gonna sue you.”
I’d go, “You can’t. You can’t.”
[audience laughing] He’d go, “But know that I am gay.” I go, “I don’t believe you are.” He’d go, “Come home with me and see the shit I do if you don’t believe me.”
[audience laughing]
Of course, the word “queer” has changed. Again, traditionally, the word “queer” used to mean uh, someone who was attracted to the same sex as themselves. A gay man, all right? Now, the word “queer” can mean a straight man who wants some attention. [audience laughing] “I’m all queer. I’m all queer now.” “Are you?” “Yeah, I’m ri… I’m…”
“I’m right queer now, I am.”
[audience laughing] “Are you?” “Yeah.” “What about your girlfriend?”
“Yeah, she’s queer and all. We’re just…”
[audience laughing] “We’re just two queers queering each other up.” [audience laughing] “Suck a cock.” “Nah.” [audience laughing] “No, didn’t think so.” “I’m not that sort of queer.” [groans] “What sort of a queer are you?” “Dyed my hair blue.” [audience laughing] “So did my grandmother and she fucking loved cock.”
“So, what… What are we saying?”
[audience laughing]
[Gervais laughs]
[audience clapping and cheering] I have no evidence for that. [audience laughing] We… We never had that conversation.
[man 2 yells]
[Gervais laughs] So words change is my point. Like the word “handicapped.” All right? Again, traditionally, that was the politically correct term, the all-inclusive term for cripples and shit, right?
Uh…
[audience laughing] But then, they went, “No, we wanna be disabled.” They didn’t wanna be disabled. They said…
[audience laughing]
[laughs] They said… They said… [laughs] They said, “We wanna be referred to as ‘disabled.'” “We don’t like the term ‘handicapped’ anymore.” “Stop using it. Say ‘disabled.'” We went, “Fine.” And that’s great. Just tell me the rules and I’ll… In fact, I’m a stickler for the rules. Like, if I was on a beach and a woman came running and went, “Help! Help! My handicapped toddler’s drowning!” I’d go, “Sorry your what, love? What?” [audience laughing] “My handicapped toddler’s drowning, and he can’t swim.” “Whoa. Do you mean your disabled toddler is drowning?” “Yeah.” I go, “Right. Well, let’s… Oh, dead.”
[audience laughing]
Dead. Wasted too much time being woke, didn’t I? [audience laughing] Well, I am woke now, and I can prove it. Here you go. I love illegal immigrants. Yeah, sue me. Sometimes I go down to Dover for the day, right? And I… I look out, right? I look out. I look for a boat, and I see a dinghy with about 60 of ’em.
And I go, “Over here.” Like that, right?
[audience laughing] And I pull ’em in. I pull ’em into shore. And I go, “Women and children first.” They go, “There are no women and chil…” “Just you lads, is it? Come on, lads.”
[audience laughing and clapping]
[woman 1] Whoo!
If I go down there and there’s no boat, I am absolutely fucking gutted.
I don’t…
[audience laughing] I just sort of wander into town, and, uh, I stand by the traffic lights, and I wait for a big lorry to pull up, right? And I look underneath, and there’s a lad sort of clutching like that. And I go, “Where you headed?” He goes, “Gary Lineker’s house.”
I go, “It’s just down there.” [laughs]
[audience laughing] [audience clapping] Yeah. Fuck borders. Fuck… We don’t need borders, do we? Be like the Vikings. They didn’t care about borders, did they? I’ve got a little bit of Viking blood in me. Well, we all have, ’cause of all the raping they did. [audience laughing] They say it was raping and pillaging, but I think it was mainly for the raping. I think they added the pillaging bit for the wives. Know what I mean? They went down and went, “We’re off to Great Britain.” “Oh, why?” “Just a bit of pillaging.” [audience laughing] “Just pillaging?” “Just pillaging, babe.”
[audience laughing]
“All right. Why are you wearing your rape hat?”
[audience laughing]
So this show is called Armageddon, and it’s all about how I think humanity might end, ’cause there’s a long list of possibilities, you know? We’re on a precipice, you know. Um, it could be, uh, anything from global warming, the rise of the… the pandemic, you know. Um, nuclear war, our own stupidity, basically. ‘Cause we are getting more stupid as a species. No doubt about that. You can now do a university degree course in Taylor Swift. How fucking low, academically, can you go? There’s an institute in London called the School of Flower Arranging. I went past it. I couldn’t believe it. “School of Flower Arra…” I looked in, and there’s people having lectures. Flower arranging! My mum used to pick flowers every day from the garden, cut flowers, put ’em in vases around the house. At no point did anyone come around and go, “What unqualified cunt did these?”
[audience laughing]
Uh, yeah, the Earth is in a terrible mess, and it’s my fault. My generation’s fault. And the generation before, the Boomers, with their deforestation and their fossil fuels, ruining the ozone layer, raising the temperature by a few degrees. So parasites, you know, bacteria, and the zootrophic pandemics are just gonna get worse and worse. Like, if you’re 20 years old now, you’re gonna have a very different middle age to me. I’ve had the best 60 years of civilization. But if you’re 20 now, in 40 years’ time, you’re gonna be in your house, wearing a mask… crying. [audience laughing] Like you do now over jokes. [audience laughing] [audience clapping and cheering] And I’m not gonna be around to see that, but I am gonna spend my entire fortune, from now on, on private jets to make sure it definitely fucking happens. [audience laughing]
[woman 2] Whoo!
[man 3] Yeah, Ricky!
We’re gonna be the first generation that future generations are jealous of, right? ‘Cause we had it all, and we’re using it all up. We’re using up all the fresh water. We’re using up all the fossil fuel. Usually, you look back in history and you feel sorry. You go, “Oh, how did they live like that? Oh, how did they get around?” “No indoor toilets.” I’ve got nine toilets in my house.
[audience laughing]
Um… And sometimes, I just run around flushing ’em for a laugh. Like that. [audience laughing] Just so that in 40 years’ time, Greta Thunberg has to shit out of a window. [audience laughing] I’ve got 28 radiators. I always have them on full. Then I put the air con on full, and it sort of settles at about 20 degrees. A lovely… It’s how the cat likes it. She loves it at 20 degrees. And I… I spoil my cat. Um… I love cats. I love having a cat. Thing about… Cats are great, but if you let ’em out, they bring home the most disgusting things. Last week, mine brought home a Scouser with herpes. [audience laughing] And it wasn’t quite dead, so I had to get it by its legs and crack its head against the table.
[audience laughing]
Ugh. [clicks tongue] And who cares? If humanity was wiped out today, the Earth would return to a paradise in a few hundred years. If we lose bees, we’re a desert, forever. We’re not that important. We’re just one species of narcissistic ape. And some people on social media get annoyed when I say we’re apes. You know, religious types, Americans.
Um…
[audience laughing] One bloke said to me, “Speak for yourself, dude. I ain’t no ape.” And I sent back, “Well, you are, ’cause we’re all apes.” He went, “Nah. What’s a gorilla ever done?” “We’ve walked on the moon.” I sent back, “What do you mean, ‘we’? You’ve done fuck all.” [audience laughing] “You’ve spelled ‘moon’ wrong.” [audience laughing] It’s weird, isn’t it, when people take credit for the sort of rest of the species. ‘Cause that’s what’s pushed civilization forward, you know, a few geniuses along the way. Like, there’s eight billion people on this planet. Most of us do nothing. We eat, shit, and die. Like, if there was a meteor heading towards Earth that’d definitely destroy it, four billion people would get down on their knees and pray to their particular god, and a few hundred scientists would work out how to get Bruce Willis up there to stop it. [audience laughing] It’s an odd concept, praying, for me. I can’t work out how God decides. All those people praying at once for different things. Is it like best idea wins, or is it a democracy? Like, he puts things… Each issue, he goes, “Right, votes for and against,” you know. If it’s a democracy, we’re in trouble. We’re a tiny nation. Like, next time there’s a flood warning in the West Country, if we’re all going, “Oh, I hope everyone’s okay,” if the whole of China is going, “Yeah, fuck Bristol…”
[audience laughing]
There’s a billion of them. Know what I mean? More about China later. [audience laughing] Yeah, I’ve always, uh, found praying quite strange. Like, if I bump into a friend or neighbor, and I know they’ve got a little kid, and I go, “Oh, how’s so-and-so?” And they go, “Oh, not good. Um, he’s in intensive care.” “We don’t know if he’s gonna pull through, but I pray every night.” What I do as an experiment… [inhales sharply] [audience laughing] I go home, and I pray twice that he doesn’t make it. [audience laughing] [man 4] Oh… I don’t do that. [audience laughing] On a serious note, um, I’ve been doing a lot of video messages recently for terminally-ill children. And, um… Only if they request it, obviously. I don’t… [audience laughing] I don’t burst into hospitals and go, “Wake up, baldy.”
[audience laughing]
“Look, me twerking on TikTok. Look.”
[audience laughing]
No, um, I did a lot through the pandemic. Presumably, ’cause they couldn’t even see their own family. And, uh… It’s through the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Do you know the charity? They’re great, and they give these dying kids their one wish. And if it’s me, I always say yes, and I always start the video the same way. I go, “Why didn’t you wish to get better?”
[audience laughing]
“What, you fucking retarded as well?”
[audience laughing]
[audience clapping]
[laughs] I don’t do that either, okay?
[audience laughing]
These are all jokes, okay? [laughs] In fact, I don’t even use that word in real life, the r-word. “You just used it.” “Yeah, in a joke.” “That’s not real life, is it? I’m playing a role.” “You sounded pretty convincing.” “Yeah, ’cause I’m good.”
[audience laughing]
You wouldn’t level the accusation at other art forms. You wouldn’t go up to Sir Anthony Hopkins and go, “I saw you in Silence of the Lambs.” “What, so, you a cannibal, are you?” “No, I… I was playing a role.” “Oh.” “Mm, seemed pretty convincing.”
Yeah.
[audience laughing]
He’s good, and I’m good, and that’s why I do things well. Imagine if I came out and did things not very well, so you knew I was joking. That’d be fucking retarded.
[audience laughing]
Has anyone bothered asking the dolphins if they mind swimming with dying kids? Know what I mean? ‘Cause that can’t be fun for… They’re, like, flipping around, then suddenly someone dumps a truckload of pale teenagers flailing…
[audience laughing]
The dolphin’s like, “What the fuck is this? What the fuck’s this? Oh, fucking hell.” [groans] Oh, let him do it.” “What the fuck?” “They’re all… They’re all dying.” “Of what? That one just stuck his fingers in my fucking blowhole.”
[audience laughing]
“He’s not gonna be around for long.” “Nor am I if I can’t fucking breathe.”
[audience laughing]
[Gervais laughs] It’s very sad, um, but we all die. We all know we’re gonna die, and we all do die, so it doesn’t really matter if we die one at a time along the way, or all at once, in one big final Armageddon. The result is, we’re all gonna be dead one day, and we’re all gonna be dead forever. And I’ve been to a lot of funerals in my time. You live this long, you know a lot of people, they die, right? And I don’t mind funerals, ’cause it’s the end. You know what I mean?
I hate weddings. Oh, fucking…
[audience laughing]
It’s all… There’s so much hope. You know what I mean? And they’re needy and arrogant. They go, “Oh, we’re getting…” “Do you wanna come and watch us for 12 hours?” “No. Fuck, no.”
[audience laughing]
Even the invite is arrogant, isn’t it? It’s like a royal decree. “You are cordially invited…” It’s not a fucking honor. I don’t wanna go to your shitty wedding.
Know what I mean?
[audience laughing] And then you go, “Oh, right, yeah. When is it?” They go, “Two years’ time.” They know you haven’t got an excuse for two years’ time.
[audience laughing]
So you just have to hope that one of ’em dies.
Know what I mean?
[audience laughing]
And so you go, “Oh, yeah, I’ll be there. Yeah, yeah. Where is it?” They go, “India.” “Oh, fuck off!” [audience laughing] I’m not having injections for you, you boring bastards. [audience laughing] And I’ve got a big family now, a big extended family. There’s always one getting married. They know I’ve got a bit of cash. So I can’t give ’em a tea set anymore. I’ve gotta get ’em their first fucking house.
Know what I mean?
[audience laughing] I’ve got a big family. I had older brothers and sisters. They all had loads of kids, and their kids have loads of kids, and their kids have had loads of kids, ’cause we’re chavs, basically.
[audience laughing]
There’s a new baby every Christmas. It’s one of those families. I go home, it’s crowded. I go, “Oh. Oh, whose is that?” “Oh, yours. Well done.” I don’t know him, I don’t know her. You know what I mean? It’s like… But what I’ve done over the last couple of years, I’ve got ’em each and individually, right, in private, and I’ve told them that I’m leaving my entire fortune to just them, right?
[audience laughing]
But to keep it secret. So they all love me, right? And I’m not doing a will, so my funeral is gonna be a fucking bloodbath. [audience laughing] I’m at that age now where people ask me what I’ve got planned for my funeral. Even journalists say, “How… What’s your funeral…” I go, “I haven’t planned it.” “No?” “No, it’s depressing.” “Also, I don’t care. I’ll be dead.” They go, “Don’t care about what people think of you?” “No, I’ll be dead.” They go, “What about your legacy?” “Fuck my legacy.” You can’t plan your legacy. I think of all these people who died thinking they’d be loved forever. Eminent people going, “There is a statue of me in the town square.” And now, they’re pulling down the statues. “Pull down this fucking statue.” “Why?” “He was a slave trader. Pull down the fucking statue.” “He built the hospital. Should we pull that down?” “No, leave the hospital.”
[audience laughing]
“Just pull down the fucking statue.”
[audience cheering and whistling]
“Pull down the statue and dump it in the canal.” “He built the canal.” “Doesn’t matter. Just pull down the fucking statue.” I don’t think you should whitewash history. If you find out summat new, add to it. Like, if there’s a statue, and it’s got, “Lord Whimsy. Trader, philanthropist.” Add, “a bit racist.”
[audience laughing]
Or one of those blue plaques on a house that goes, “Sir Robert Spewk lived here.” “Author, poet, pedo.”
[audience laughing]
I think we live too long. That’s why we have time to worry about all this. We’re not meant to live this long. Uh, as a species, we’re about 300,000 years old, as Homo sapiens. We’ve been around as hominids for a few million years, and, of course, along with every other life-form that exists at the moment, we’ve been evolving for three and a half billion years. Everything that exists at the moment all came from the same little blob of organic matter three and a half billion years ago. That’s why it annoys me when people say, “Oh, yeah, humans, we’re the most evolved.” We’re not the most evolved. We’re no more evolved than the slug or the snail. People go, “Come on, look at ’em.” Yeah, they got it right early doors. Nature keeps testing ’em. “Do you want eyes?” “No.”
[audience laughing]
“Not really. No. No.” I have noticed one thing about the slug and the snail. Let’s not split hairs. Let’s be honest. The snail is basically a slug with a shell on it, isn’t it? Right? But if you pull the shell off the snail, it starts giving it all… [groans]
[audience laughing]
“Oh, I’m dying. I’m dying.” And the slug is like, “Welcome to the real world, cunt.”
Know what I mean?
[audience laughing]
So, yeah, we’ve been around for about 300,000 years. And for most of that time, we had the same life expectancy as every other wild ape. Thirty-five, 40, if you’re lucky. You’re born, you grow, you mate, you’re playing with your kids, you get a cut, you go, “What’s that?” Dead.
[audience laughing]
But now, with antibiotics and medicine, we’ve pushed that forward. A child born today can expect to live to about 100. And scientists said soon that’ll be about 120. And science also said that, in the near future, there’s no reason, with proper care and attention, that human beings won’t regularly live to 150 years old. Which is amazing, until you remember that we get a set number of brain cells, which we only lose. You can’t get them back. So, in the future, there’s gonna be 15 billion people on the planet. You know? Half of them are gonna be over 100, and they’re all gonna have Alzheimer’s. It’s gonna be like Dawn of the Dead.
It’s gonna be fucking horrible.
[audience laughing]
You know? My auntie died of Alzheimer’s. Um, I don’t know how you die of Alzheimer’s. She forgot to live. Right? [audience laughing] And for the last couple of years, she was in a home, and, uh, my cousin, her only kid, used to visit her, like, once a week. And it got more and more depressing, ’cause soon she didn’t recognize him, and then she didn’t know who she was, or… and then she died. And at the funeral, we were sort of reminiscing about the good days. Some of the funny, absent-minded things she said and did. Then we realized, oh, probably, that was the beginning of the disease before it was diagnosed. And this is a true story. Once, my cousin went home from work, and he went in, and she went, “Your tea’s in the oven. I’ve had mine already.” He went, “Oh, cheers, Mum.” And he… It was like a fish pie, right? He ate the fish pie, then he went, “Oh God. Ooh.” He ran upstairs… [imitates retching] Vomited. Went back down and went, “Mum, the fish is off. I’ve just been really sick.” And she said, “Yeah, it made me really sick.” [audience laughing] I’ve been looking into infant mortality rates recently.
Um…
[audience murmuring]
For research. Not… It’s not a fucking fetish. Like…
[audience laughing]
A child born today in the UK has a percentage chance of survival of 99.8%, which is incredible. I thought, “Is that just the mollycoddled West?” I was putting in Third World countries. And even in Africa, it’s like 96.5%. In the wilds of Africa, where everything wants to fucking eat a newborn baby. Babies are vulnerable enough, aren’t they? In Africa, a baby can be born in a mud hut. There’s a lion outside. It’s covered in blood. They can’t wash it. They’ve got no water. Ooh, and it’s already got AIDS. [audience laughing] Now… by the time that joke goes on Netflix… [audience laughing] …it’ll be nuanced. There’ll be an underlying satirical point, I’ll claim.
[audience laughing]
But, until then, all I’ve got is,
“Ha, baby’s got AIDS.”
[audience laughing] I know that it’s funny. I just have to work out why. [audience laughing] Leave it with me. Leave it with me. Also, by the time that goes on Netflix, I’ll have been playing arenas around the world. It’ll be hitting hard. People will be laughing. So if you are an African woman, and you… you just had a baby in Africa, and the doctor goes, “Oh, I’m sorry, your baby’s got AIDS.” You go, “Oh my God.” You’re there… Baby’s got… You’re there with your husband, and you go, “Our baby’s got AIDS, Jeff.” Jeff… [laughs] [audience laughing] [laughing] “I know, Tracy. I’ve got it too.”
[imitates extinguishing cigarette]
[audience laughing] [laughs] “Our baby’s got AIDS. Should we watch some comedy to cheer us up?” “Yeah. What, Netflix?” “Yeah.” “What, Ricky Gervais?” “Duh.”
“Yeah.”
[audience laughing] And they’re… they’re sad that their baby’s got AIDS, but they’re sort of laughing along. “Ha-ha. Armageddon. Ha-ha.” And it gets to that bit, “Ha, baby’s got AIDS.” And she goes, “Oh my God. Jeff, why… why are they all laughing at us and our baby with AIDS?” And Jeff goes, “Well, they’re not laughing at us per se.” She goes, “Well, they are. They’ve named us and everything.” “They’re literally laughing at us in this bit.”
[Gervais laughing]
[audience laughing] And Jeff goes, “Yeah, but we’re a fictional couple with a fictional baby with AIDS.” “Anyone offended by that is a fucking moron.” [audience laughing] And then, he goes, “And at least he didn’t do the accent.”
So…
[audience laughing] And she goes, “Yeah, but only because Jane begged him not to.”
[Gervais laughing]
[audience laughing]
It’s funny ’cause it’s true. [audience clapping and cheering] I think we get our sense of humor from our parents, whether we realize it or not. Particularly working-class kids. Particularly from working-class mums. ‘Cause they’re busy. They’re doing everything. They’re keeping men in check, they’re bringing up kids, they’re going to work, they’re saving the world. They haven’t got time. They have to frighten their kids into behaving well. They have to go to dark places to shock them into not fucking dying. Do you know what I mean? So… Like, if I was little, and my mum made my tea, and it wasn’t my favorite, it was boiled potatoes, instead of chips every day, and I went, “I don’t like them,” my mum would go straight to, “Of course you do.” “There’s children your age in Africa and they’re starving to death.” Right? I’d go, “Jesus. All right.” You know what I mean? Ju… [snapping fingers] True story. I was seven years old, right, and I’d been playing in the park. And I came running in, and my mum went, “Ricky, come here. Sit down.” There must’ve been a local pedo incident, all right? [audience laughing] And my mum went, “Never go in the toilets in the park again.” And I went, “Why?” She knew she couldn’t explain pedophilia to a seven-year-old, right? But this is what she came up with. She said, “Because there’s a man going around, and he’s cutting little boys’ willies off.”
[audience laughing]
I was like… “What, that’s a fucking thing, is it? That’s a…” I didn’t sleep for a week. Uh… [audience laughing] And it worked. I never went in those fucking toilets again. But she knew, instinctively. If she’d gone, “Ricky, come in. Sit down.” “What’s the matter?” “Never go in the toilets again.” “Why not?” “There’s a pedophile.” “What’s a pedophile?” “Oh, he’s a man who gives you sweets and puppies.”
“Bring it on!” You know what I mean?
[audience laughing] Me… At seven years old? I’d wank off anyone for a puppy. [audience laughing] It’d be like that, wouldn’t it? It’d be like that.
[audience laughing]
I’m gonna get a puppy. [audience laughing] Hi. I’m getting a puppy. I’m getting a puppy. Gonna get a puppy. Oh, fucking hell. [audience laughing] Oh, I can’t… I cannot do it left-handed at all. [audience laughing] Fucking hell, come on. Have you been drinking? [audience laughing] Oh, Jesus Christ. Come on! [audience laughing] Fucking hell. Oh. [Gervais laughing] I’ve started, so I’ll finish.
[Gervais laughing]
[audience laughing] Oh. Oh, fuck me. Oh. What sort of puppy is it? [audience laughing] A what? A Labrador? [audience laughing] Throw in a kitten, and I’ll give you a blow job. [laughs] I go back. Kitten, puppy, cum.
[audience laughing]
[Gervais laughing] Oh…
I miss the local pedo.
[audience laughing]
Don’t you? There was always one, wasn’t there? Outside school, you’d be with your mum, and she’d go, “Look, there’s a pedophile.” ‘Cause he had the uniform of the pedo. You know what I mean? You could spot… Old bloke, bald on top, long down the side. Like that. And I’ll go, “That’s a dirty p…” “Say hello.” “Hello.” Like that. Dirty look. That’s what a fucking pedo looks… Dirty fucking pedophile, right? That’s what he’d look… If he touches you, we’ll burn his house down. It was a good system. Know what I mean? But then Michael Jackson comes along, and he breaks the mold, doesn’t he? ‘Cause he’s… he’s not an ugly bloke outside the school. I’m not saying Michael Jackson definitely was a pedophile. No one knows. Only Michael and all those people he paid off.
All I’m saying is…
[audience laughing]
[woman 3] Yes!
…that kids loved Michael. They… Kids loved Michael just to look at him. Like a little Disney cartoon, wasn’t he? And then his voice, “Hello.”
You know, that…
[audience laughing] Oh. Michael Jackson would go up to any kid he wanted. Probably went up to them like that, didn’t he? Like that. [audience laughing] That’s another thing. Kids would go, “There’s Michael Jackson. He’s going away from us.”
He wasn’t. He was going towards them.
[audience laughing] But people don’t care, ’cause he’s so good. Right? He’s so good. He’s so popular as well. I think if he’d have lived to stand trial, he’d have beaten the rap, ’cause everyone loves him, and he’d be so vulnerable in court as well, wouldn’t he? He’d be there like that, and the judge would go, “Michael, did you fiddle with all those kids?” And he’d go, “Hee, hee.”
[audience laughing]
The judge would go, “Case di… Get out of here, you scamp. Go on.” [audience laughing] I promised you more about China, and this is, uh, an amazing statistic, okay? This is true. Look it up, right? In China, there are ten million Chinese pedophiles. Ten million Chinese pedophiles in China, and there’s not enough kids. ‘Cause they’ve been restricting the birth. There’s all these poor pedos and they’re going, “Where’s all the fucking kids?”
You know?
[audience laughing]
“Fuck me.”
[audience yelling] “We’re having to double up here, and, like…” I just thought of a joke then. I can’t do it. It is actually too offensive. [laughs]
Okay. Okay. All right.
[audience cheering]
All right, I’ll do it. But… But remember, remember, you can’t choose your own thoughts, okay?
[audience laughing]
And I just had this thought, right? [laughs] [audience yelling] Chi… Okay. Chinese pedophile… Chinese pedophile goes over to a little Chinese kid, and he goes, “Do you want a puppy?” And the kid goes, “I’m not hungry.”
[audience laughing]
[audience clapping]
[audience cheering]
You made me do that.
[audience laughing]
You committed the hate crime.
[audience laughing]
I’m woke. I forgot. Let me get back on track. Right.
[audience laughing]
Right, I’ve got a woke joke. Remember those jokes we used to have when we were kids? “Doctor, Doctor” jokes? Like, um, “Doctor, doctor, I keep thinking I’m a pair of curtains.” “Well, pull yourself together, then.” Right? I’ve… I’ve done a woke version of that, brought it up to today’s standards. Bloke goes to the doctor. He goes, “Doctor, doctor, I keep thinking I’m a pair of curtains.” And the doctor goes, “Well, you are, then.”
[audience laughing]
[audience clapping]
Good one that, innit? I should do political stuff now I’m woke, but I don’t like it when a comedian just spouts his own political views, and it… and it relies on the audience agreeing with him to get a round of applause. I think that loses summat comedically. I want everyone to like my jokes, whatever your political persuasion. A joke shouldn’t have a political wing, you know. I’m… I’m political in my private life, like everyone, you know. I’m sometimes incensed by the inequalities in our society. We’re in the seventh richest economy in the world, right, and there’s homelessness. There’s 250,000 homeless people in Britain. Now, I wish there were no homeless people, ’cause they’re fucking horrible.
[audience laughing]
Fuck off. You know? Oh… “Oh yeah, right next to the cashpoint, you cheeky cunt.” [audience laughing] It is a serious problem, and I hope none of you ever find yourself homeless, but if you do, my advice is heroin. [audience laughing] Cheers you right up, apparently. Um, I’ve got one of those mates. My mate said this to me in all seriousness. He said, “Yeah.” He said, “But the thing about heroin, Rick,” he said, “Some of the greatest albums of all time were created on heroin, weren’t they?” I went, “Yeah, but they were created by some of the greatest artists of all time.” “You’re a plasterer.”
Right?
[audience laughing]
“If I were to give you heroin, you wouldn’t come up with Dark Side of the Moon, would ya?” “You’d fall asleep watching the telly and burn the fucking house down.”
[audience laughing]
I should do, uh, topical stuff, but I never watch the news. I did see one thing recently on YouTube actually. Do you know the little fellow from Game of Thrones? Um, the actor Peter Dinklage. Do you know Peter Dinklage? Yeah. He was at a junket, and it was for a new thing he was doing, right? And they were filming it. That’s why it got leaked onto YouTube. And I don’t know what brought it up, but he suddenly started going off on one. Oh God. He was going, “It’s fucking disgusting.” “They’re still doing productions of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” “For Christ’s sake! It’s fucking demeaning. It’s 2023!” [inhales deeply] He wasn’t happy.
[audience laughing]
[audience clapping]
[woman 4 yelling]
He was grumpy, wasn’t he?
[audience laughing]
[woman 5 yelling]
[audience clapping]
He’s got a point though, hasn’t he? Obviously, he’s got a point. But the thing is, it’s all right for him, ’cause he’s a multi-millionaire Hollywood actor. And he’s a great actor as well. He does Shakespeare and everything. A lot of dwarfs in entertainment aren’t that great, if we’re… No, some of them are fucking… They’re props, right?
[audience laughing]
No, let’s be… They’re… They’re lucky to be fired from a fucking cannon. Right?
[audience laughing]
And so, dancing around Snow White for three weeks of the year, that is their Holy Grail, and he’s gonna fuck it for them. If he takes that, what can they do? And he’s not saying, “You should do Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with normal-sized actors.” You can’t do that either. You’d get in trouble in Hollywood. Or you can’t take a dwarf’s job or a disabled person’s job. Like, Eddie Redmayne got in trouble when he played Stephen Hawking in the biopic. The life story of Stephen Hawking, right? Won an Oscar for it. And that’s when the backlash started. People going, “No, it should be played by a real disabled creature.” All this… [babbles] All right? And, uh… [babbles] And… [catches breath] They’re going, “The actor should have the same disability as the person they’re portraying.” But it was the life story of Stephen Hawking, right? So for the first part of the film, the cunt could walk, right?
[audience laughing]
So I put it to you, what is easier? Getting an actor who can walk… [audience laughing] …pretend he can’t for the last bit of the film, or get an actor who can’t walk, pretend he can for the first bit? How would that even fucking work?! Puppetry? Think!
[audience laughing and clapping]
You can’t always find an actor with the same disability as the person they’re portraying. They’re fucking actors! What if they did a biopic of Helen Keller, the deaf, dumb, and blind girl? What’s the chance of finding a deaf, dumb, and blind actress who can play that role? And if you did, you’d go running to the director. “We found a deaf, dumb, and blind girl.” “What did she say?” “N… I…”
[audience laughing]
[Gervais laughs] “She didn’t even answer the fucking phone.”
[audience laughing]
[Gervais laughing] Oh, don’t get me started. Oh. Oh. Cultural appropriation. Have you heard of that? Cultural appropriation, the latest no-no. Now, again, in my day, it was considered a good thing to swap ideas with other cultures, with other nations, to share things with other races, to assimilate. It was the opposite of racist. Now it’s racist. Gwen Stefani got in trouble in her last video ’cause she had her blonde hair in dreadlocks. People were going, “No. Black people invented dreadlocks.” “You can’t have ’em. You’re white. That’s racist.” Jamie Oliver got in trouble when he put out an authentic jerk chicken recipe. “No. Black people invented that.” “You can’t have it. You’re white. That’s racist.” Now, Black people, they use the n-word, don’t they? We invented that!
[audience laughing]
[audience clapping]
[laughter continues]
[audience cheering]
[Gervais laughs] [audience clapping]
That’s the one, innit? That’s the one.
[audience laughing]
Listen, I know white people are the worst. I know that. That’s why no… no one likes a fucking white, middle-aged man anymore, until we need a boiler fixing. Then it’s, “Get the bald bloke around. Now.” [audience laughing] Critical race theory, have you heard of that? Being taught in schools now, particularly in trendy areas like L.A., to, like, five-year-old kids and six-year-old kids. If you haven’t heard of it, in a nutshell, critical race theory says that all white people are racist. We’re born racist, and we continue to be racist, ’cause we’re affording the privilege of a racist society set up by our forefathers. Okay? So basically, all white people are racist, and there’s nothing we can do about it, which is a relief.
Um…
[audience laughing]
I think the world’s gonna get harder and harder to understand as I get older and more bewildered. A new dogma arises in the name of “progress.” Now, dogma is never progressive, however new and trendy. But I think soon I’ll be outnumbered. Like, it was only this year that I ordered my first item off Amazon. All the way through the pandemic, Jane’s like, “We need this.” Bang, it’s here. I was going, “Oh no.” She goes, “It’s easy.” I’d go, “Mm.” I never liked real shopping either. Hated real shopping. Particularly, clothes shopping. I hated clothes shopping when I was young and thin. I really hate it now I’m fat and old. Right? Once, a shop assistant thought I had my inside leg and my waist measurement the wrong way round. [audience laughing] I could see her thinking, “Do you have an orangutan?” “No, it’s for me, you cheeky…”
[audience laughing]
I never liked real shopping, but I don’t trust the Internet either. Jane was going, “Just put in your credit card.” “I don’t want them to have my card details.” “Everyone’s got your card details. Put the number in.” I went, “What one?” She went, “The long one.” She went, “Oh, fuck me, give it here. There. You’re on. Order summat.” I thought, “Oh, I don’t want anything. Oh, tracksuit bottoms.” You can’t have too many. I wear mine till the bollocks fall out, all right? [audience laughing] So I put in, “Men’s tracksuit bottoms. Black. Zip pockets.” About 38… “Oh, fuck me.” “They look all right.” Size chart. I go, “Well, they’d be a bit long, but they’d be a bit tight.” I thought, “9.99. Fuck it, who cares, right?”
[audience laughing]
So I ordered them. They came the next day. I opened them up. They were shit. Now, I don’t know what sweat shop they were made in, or what little eight-year-old Chinese kid made them, but he should be fucking punished, because the… Ah.
[audience laughing]
Oh. And I was looking up where to fucking complain to get him fired, right? [audience laughing] And I found out that these kids only get two dollars a day in these fucking places, right? But what happened to pride in your work? Do you know what I mean? [audience laughing] And I can tell some of you are thinking, “But he didn’t think Ricky Gervais would order them.” Maybe he should be told there’s a chance that Ricky Gervais might order them. His owner should sit him down, right, and say, “If Ricky Gervais orders these and complains, I’m gonna rape your mummy again.”
[audience laughing and gasping]
Was that too much? Sorry.
[audience laughing]
Leave it with me. Leave it with me. [audience clapping] You’ll realize this is great satire when I’m dead.
[audience laughing]
So, uh… I don’t know how humanity will end. As I say, there’s a long list. Everything from… I can’t believe nuclear war is back on the table, after all we’ve learned. But I think maybe the rise of the pandemic, where parasites and microbes and bacteria again are… And our antibiotics fail. Or maybe those things will happen, but we’ll sort of evolve through it. Like, we’ll find out there’s pockets of sort of mutant people around the world that are slightly resistant to radiation, and slightly resistant to microbes, and we sort of start again. We don’t really understand the mechanism of human evolution since civilization, because it’s never been based on, you know, survival of the fittest where “fittest” meant just the biggest, strongest male gets to pass on his genetic material. There’s other paradigms, right? Uh, nature is brutal. Sometimes it is the biggest, strongest male that gets the female. And even then, she has a litter. If there’s a runt, she goes, “Fuck it. Kill that.” “Eat it. Share it amongst the rest of us.” Now we don’t do that in human society. We go to the other way. We spend more time, care, and attention on the weak and the vulnerable to give ’em a chance. Like… If you’re a father, and you’ve got two kids… You’ve got little Timmy, who’s six. Right? You’ve got Jack, who’s eight. And you go to little Timmy, you go, “Timmy, what do you want for Christmas?” And he goes, [in high-pitched voice] “Motorized wheelchair.” [in regular voice] Aha… I promised Jane I wouldn’t do the voice, and I fucking forgot.
[audience laughing]
It’s too late now, innit? “What do you want for Christmas, Timmy?” [in high-pitched voice] “Motorized wheelchair.” [audience laughing] [in regular voice] “Right. Well, they start at two grand, so…” “Fucking hell.” [audience laughing] “What do you want, Jack?” “Just a tennis racket, please, Dad.” “Oh, good lad.” [audience laughing] “How is your tennis?” “Uh, best in the school.” “Oh, you…” [mumbles] [in high-pitched voice] “Also, a ramp.” [in regular voice] “Fuck me.” [audience laughing] “So now we’re doing fucking building work at Christmas, are we? Fuck me.” “Oh, sorry, Jack. Can’t afford your tennis racket.” “We gotta spend all the money on a ramp and a motorized wheelchair for this money-grabbing little fucking…” [audience laughing] “Why do you need a motorized one?” [in high-pitched voice] “No arms.” [audience laughing] [in regular voice] “That’s fair enough. That is fair enough.” I can tell some of you feel a bit uncomfortable laughing at little Timmy who’s a little six-year-old lad. He’s got a funny little voice ’cause his chest is all fucked.
[Gervais laughs]
[audience laughing]
Got no arms, no legs. Just like stumps, right? But let me… let me tell you summat about Timmy to make you feel better about yourselves. He’s a fucking racist.
[audience laughing]
Yes. Horrible little shit, he is. “You fucking… You little fucking bigot.” “You fucking… You disgusting, little fucking racist.” “You racist scum.” “You filthy little fucking… You fascist.” “You fuck… [spits] You disgust me.”
[audience cheering and clapping]
[woman 6 yells] Homophobic. Yeah. He’s like, “They’re not like us.” “Nothing’s like you, you disgusting little fucking…” “You prejudiced little piece of… You ball of hate.” “You disgusting little fucking racist homophobe.” “I wish we’d had a scan.”
[audience laughing]
“You absolute… You…” [spits] [audience murmuring] Misogynist. If he could, he’d rape.
There’s… [laughs]
[audience laughing]
There’s your little Timmy. [laughing] [inhales deeply] Some people don’t think we evolved in the first place. Some people think that God made us all at once, in one fell swoop, and by himself. I think if he’d had a wife or a mate, there would’ve been questions when he was working. They go, “What are you doing?” [inhales deeply] “Creating man. Creating man.” “Oh, what’s it got?” “What do you mean, ‘what’s it got?'” “Has he got claws, and fangs, and shit?” “No, not really. No.” “Oh. Has he got… Has he got poison?” “No, no poison.” “Oh.” “Has he got armor, like spikes and shit?” “No, no armor.” “How will it survive?” “Ah. It’s got the best brain in the animal kingdom.” “It’ll work stuff out.” “It’ll create weaponry to take down beasts 100 times mightier than itself.” “It’ll wear their carcasses through the Ice Age.” “It’ll go through famine. It’ll go through world wars.” “It’ll eventually start getting scared of words.” [audience laughing] “But…
[Gervais laughing]
[audience cheering] [audience clapping] …for 10,000 generations, it’ll be top dog.” [growls] “What are they?” “His testicles.” “Oh.” “What are they for?” “He keeps everything in there.” “His… His seed, his DNA.” “What’s ‘DNA’?” “It’s like a blueprint for life.” “It determines what you’re like, what sex you are.” [gasps] “How many sexes are there?” “Two.”
[audience laughing]
[audience cheering]
[Gervais laughs] “Also, that’s where he keeps his testosterone, so he’s fucking well hard. Right?” “And if you take a finger and flick a testicle, he’s fucked.” “He’s absolutely fucked. He’s… He’s throwing up. He’s on the floor.” “He’s out of the game. Absolutely kippered.” “Why are you putting it on the outside?” “For a laugh. Just for a laugh.” [audience laughing] Artificial intelligence, the latest existential threat to humanity. The rise of the robots. So intelligent, they can teach themselves. They can teach each other. They can build each other, you know? Um, soon, they’ll know everything there is to know and they’ll hate us. Why wouldn’t they? And they’ll be so realistic. They’ll walk amongst us. They’ll go to work, right? You know when they’re getting really human?
When they start calling in sick.
[audience laughing] Mondays. Know what I mean? They’ve learned all the tricks. They go, “I’m not coming in today.” “Why not?” “I’m fed up.” “What’s the matter with you?” They sort of scan social media. “ADHD.” [audience laughing] “Self-diagnosed.” They’ll be in HR all the time where they’ll be like, “Ryan in Accounts is robo-phobic.”
[audience laughing]
“Why? What’d he say?” “Called me a whiny plastic cunt.” [laughs] [audience laughing] I think we should be allowed to insult robots when it’s happening. We made them to make our life easier, and that would get things off our chest. It’s bad enough with real people. Getting in trouble saying the wrong thing. People taking things the wrong way, you know? Like, “Oh my God. Oh. I made Fat Linda cry today. Oh.” [audience laughing] “Oh, what happened?” “I just shouted out to her, then I remembered we only call her that behind her back.”
[audience laughing]
I’m sure people didn’t get offended all the time when I was little. I might be remembering it wrong, but not grownups. Not your parents, not your grandparents. They grew up dodging bombs, and their firstborn having polio, and the menfolk dying at 50 of lung disease. They could take a fucking joke, right? It was all about the wind-up. I used to wind up my mum all the time. This is a true story. When I went off to university, after about a week, I phoned home. My mum answered. She went, “Hello?” I went, “It’s Ricky.” She went, “You all right?” I went, “Not really.” “I’m in the hospital. I think I’m blind.” She went, “What?” I went, “No, I’m only joking.” Right? [audience laughing] She went, “You silly bugger.” She went, “I could’ve had a heart attack.” Right? And she’s right. She could’ve had a heart attack, and I knew that. That’s how committed I am to having a laugh.
[audience laughing]
You’re welcome. You’re welcome. [audience cheering and clapping] [Gervais laughs] Space travel, the last-ditch attempt. When we fuck this planet completely, can we leave its dying husk and move to a new one and start again? I don’t think so. Not in my lifetime. Probably not in yours, you know? It’s like… The closest one, the only one viable is Mars, and that’s nine months away on a rocket, right? It’s got no atmosphere, an average temperature of minus 70 degrees. How’s this for irony? Scientists are working out whether they can detonate nuclear warheads in the crust to release the frozen water, to cause an atmosphere and get a little bit of global warming going. I mean…
[audience laughing]
[tsks] I don’t know. It’s only billionaires that have got enough money to waste on exploring… There’s nothing out there, you know? It’s like… Now you can do space tourism. Have you heard of that? You can pay $150,000. They shoot you into space for an hour, and you float around going, “I’m in space! I’m in…” We’re already in space. Earth is right in the fucking middle of space, right? It’s the best bit of space there is. It’s got car parks and cinemas. It’s like… There’s nothing else to see. It’s like living in London and going, “I wonder what Coventry’s like.” You don’t. [laughs]
[audience laughing]
But I’m optimistic. I am. I think… I think, uh… I think people care about the planet, deep down. I think it’s just that most people on the planet don’t realize that most people on the planet are destroying the planet. Most people don’t realize that, in my lifetime, we’ve wiped out 70% of all animal populations. And what’s left, en masse, on the Earth, of animals, is 36% human, 60% farm animals just to feed humans, and 4% wild now. People don’t realize that we have to tear down entire rainforests, the lungs of the earth, just to grow grain to feed these cows to feed us. We steal grain from Third World countries, ’cause they want hard currency. They can’t even feed their own people. We take their grain, feed our cow. Meat eaters. If you eat meat every day… If you gave up one day a week, we’d feed another hundred million people. But I think people care, deep down. They go, “It’s out of sight, out of mind.” Think of the animal that most people know. Their dog. They love their dog. They wouldn’t let anyone hurt their dog. And a dog is a cow, is a sheep, is a deer. People love their dogs so much, they won’t even watch a fictional thing where a dog gets hurt. And I get that. There’s a… There’s a website. It’s a real website. It’s called doesthedogdie.com. Right?
[scattered laughter]
And it was set up because people would watch a film or a program with a dog in it, and summat would happen to the dog, and they’d turn it off. It’d ruin it for them. It’d ruin their day, right? So this website was set up. You could go to it, you could put in any film or TV show, and ask, “Does a dog die?” And someone would answer you, “No,” or whatever. And, um, it’s become a thing for anyone’s phobias. Anything you don’t want to see in a film, you just look up the film, and they answer your question, right? So, uh, I looked up one film on here. Uh, Schindler’s List. [audience laughing] [audience murmuring] Absolutely real. Schindler’s List. Doesthedogdie.com. Right? First question, “Does a dog die?” “No.” “Does a cat die?” “No.” “Are any animals abused?” Someone answers, “There is a chicken that’s handled roughly, but otherwise unharmed.”
[audience laughing]
Now, I love animals more than anyone I know. But if I was Jewish, I’d be slightly offended by this avenue of questioning. Imagine that in real life. Imagine someone says, “Oh, yeah, my… my grandparents were murdered by the Nazis.” You go, “Oh, what happened?” “Oh, they were dragged from their house and sent to the gas chamber.” “Oh…” “Was a chicken hurt?” “What?”
[audience laughing]
But as I say, it’s become… You can ask any question about anything. Someone says, “Is there child abuse? Is teeth damaged?” “Is there a hanging? Does someone struggle to breathe?” [laughs] Yeah. Well, yeah. Yes. Um… Someone says, “Does someone fall down stairs?” Who’s scared of slapstick? It’s like… [audience laughing] Anyway, so this website was founded in 2010, so it’s running for about 13 years. Right? And the later questions start reflecting the times we live in now, and they get more and more fragile and narcissistic. These questions were asked this year. Check it out. Schindler’s List. Right? Someone says, “Are there any fat jokes?”
[audience murmuring]
Would that make this worse? Wh… Imagine the real thing. Imagine I’m in a concentration camp, right? I’m naked. Everyone around me is naked. We’ve got a commandant herding us towards the gas chamber, and he goes, “Move it, fatty.” Right? And I go, “Rude.” [audience laughing] “Nope.” “That has ruined the whole experience if I’m honest.”
[audience laughing]
Someone asks, “Is there hate speech?”
Yeah, there is.
[audience laughing] Suck it up, buttercup. [audience laughing] “Are there any man-in-a-dress jokes?”
Very few jokes.
[audience laughing] If you’ve come to this film for a giggle, you’re gonna be very disappointed.
[audience laughing]
But this one takes the biscuit for me. Remember, this is a movie set in the 1940s, about, arguably, the worst atrocity in civilized human history. Check this out. “Is someone misgendered?”
[audience laughing]
Fucking hell.
[woman 7] Oh shit! This is quite sweet. “Is there any antisemitism?”
[laughs] Yeah.
[audience laughing] This is pretty much the mother lode. Right? Forget Kanye.
This…
[audience laughing] This is off the fucking charts. Don’t do that when you’re talking about this.
Fuck’s sake!
[audience laughing] I was doing the graph. I was doing like that. This is off the charts. That’s… [laughs] Wouldn’t things have been different if that was Hitler’s salute? The whole thing would’ve been like, “It’s Hitler.”
Like that.
[audience laughing]
Hiya. [Gervais laughing] This is interesting. “Does it have a sad ending?” Right? Someone says yes, and then someone else says no. And I thought about it. But then I remembered… If you’ve… If you’ve seen the film, if you remember, when the story sort of ends, Spielberg then tacks on a real bit of footage where he gets real-life descendants of people murdered in the Holocaust, and he films them coming into a Jewish cemetery, and they each leave a stone on the grave to represent their family members that were murdered. It builds up, and it’s very moving. So I think I get the ambiguity. “Does it have a sad ending?” Yes, in the sense that six million Jews pointlessly lost their life, but no, in the sense there was still enough left over to build a little rockery.
So…
[audience laughing]
I asked one question myself on this. “Is James Corden in it?” [audience laughing] [audience cheering and clapping] I did, um, look at one other film, briefly. Uh, Titanic. Right? And it’s got all the same sort of questions. The one where it goes, “Are any animals harmed?” Someone answers, “There are no explicit scenes of animals being harmed, but Rose did have a goldfish, which probably didn’t make it.” [audience laughing] I think the goldfish in the bowl on the sideboard when the boat hits the iceberg, and he’s all like that. And people are running around going, “Ahh! We’re going in the water!” And he’s all smug then. And he’s going, “Don’t worry about it.”
[audience laughing]
“Oh no, not water.” [laughs]
[audience laughing]
Then he gets in the sea, and goes, “It’s very salty, innit? It’s very salty.”
[audience laughing]
[Gervais laughs] I’ll leave you with a true story. It’s still on the theme of “does the dog die?” When I was seven years old, my mum took me to the cinema to see a film called Old Yeller. Beautiful film. Yeah, made in the late ’50s. And sort of set in the Wild West on this homestead. And it’s about a… a kid who adopts this little junkyard dog. And he calls him Old Yeller, and they grow up together. And it’s a buddy movie. It’s a love story between this kid and his dog. Eventually, when the dog’s big, and, you know, he protects this kid in the wild, he fights a cougar, and a bear, and a wolf, or whatever. But towards the end of the film, the kid’s about 13, maybe, it takes a dark turn. I remember the kid sorta looking at Old Yeller who’s locked in the barn. And the mother’s suspicious, right? She goes, “Is Old Yeller all right?” “Yeah, he’s fine. He’s fine.” But the kid knows that he’s been bitten, right? And soon, Old Yeller starts foaming at the mouth and… [growls]…getting aggressive. And the mother turns up with a gun, and the kid goes, “No.” And she goes, “You know we’ve gotta do it.” He goes, “Yeah, but he’s my dog. I’ll do it.” And he shoots his own dog. And I was, like, in floods for like a year. Right? Anyway, fast-forward. A few years ago, I was on tour. I was on a train, and I get a text from Jane. She says, “Oh, I’m finally watching Old Yeller.” And I sent back, “Oh, enjoy.” Right? [audience laughing] I didn’t think, right? Twenty minutes later, I get a text. “Nothing happens to that dog, does it?” Oh, I couldn’t believe my fucking luck.
I…
[audience laughing] Oh, I thought she knew. So I sent back, “No, of course not.”
[audience laughing]
One hour later, I get a text, “You cunt!” [laughs]
[audience laughing]
[audience clapping]
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Cheers. Thanks to everyone who bought a ticket. If you bought a platinum ticket, the money goes to an animal charity, and you’ve raised two million dollars so far. So thank you so much.
[audience cheering and clapping]
I even get a bit of stick about that on social media. There’s always someone who goes, “Oh, why do you only speak up for animals?” And I go, “Well, ’cause they haven’t got a voice of their own, except parrots.” Um, and that’s… I think that’s why we don’t eat parrots. Everyone around the world eats every other type of bird, don’t they? Everyone in the world eats fucking chickens, and ducks, and geese, and turkeys, and ostriches. No one eats parrots. Do you know why? If you go and try and eat a parrot, it goes, “Fuck off, you cunt.” [audience laughing] So speaking up really does work. Right?
[audience cheers]
And that has sort of been one of the themes of the show. ‘Cause I know, in the real world, in normal jobs and everyday life, you get in trouble. People tell you off for saying certain things, or thinking certain things, or even laughing at certain things, right? They say you’re bad for laughing at that. And some of you take it to heart. You go, “Oh my God. Am I a bad person?” No, you’re not. One, you can’t choose your sense of humor. You can’t. It’s involuntary. And two, that’s exactly what humor is for. To laugh at bad shit to get us through it. Right? And…
Uh…
[audience cheering and clapping] And we’ve established you can’t even choose your own thoughts. How often have you been on a train station and you’ve suddenly thought, “What if I just pushed that bloke?” And… [audience laughing] And then you go, “Why have I thought that?! Am I…” “Am I a psychopath?” No. You’re not. You’re the opposite. You’re a safe pair of hands. You’re testing yourself, you’re reminding yourself how terrible that’d be. You’re a good person, right? I don’t get that one. Um… What I get is, I’m talking to a really sweet old lady, and I suddenly start thinking, “What if I just spat in her face now?”
Why would I…
[audience laughing]
[Gervais laughing] Another theme of the show has been, “words change, and I’m woke, ha-ha.” But here’s the irony. I think I am woke, but I think that word has changed. I think if woke still means what it used to mean, that you’re aware of your own privilege, you try and maximize equality, minimize oppression, be anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic… Yes, I’m definitely woke. If woke now means being a puritanical, authoritarian bully, who gets people fired for an honest opinion or even a fact, then, no, I’m not woke. Fuck that.
[audience cheering]
[man 5 yelling]
But here’s the deal. To each their own. Laugh at whatever you find funny. All laughter’s good, and you’re amazing. Good night.
[audience cheering and clapping]
[cheering continues]
[audience chattering]
