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Stephen Merchant at the Oxford Union

Started by Tony Yeboah, August 21, 2018, 09:58:35 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Tony Yeboah

Smoothly navigates the questions about Gervais in the last 10 minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Vn6ecRR8LE


BlodwynPig


Twit 2

Very skilfully manages to imply he's an egotist with no sense of quality control. The anti-Gervais brigade on here should feel vindicated. It's one thing for us to speculate about this on instinct and another when someone who's worked with him for 10 years confirms it, whilst also literally calling him a cunt. Good stuff!

Maurice Yeatman

The fact that no one had the wit to ask him what he thinks of Derek makes me despair of these college-educated Bobbysoxers.

St_Eddie

Quote from: Twit 2 on August 22, 2018, 02:38:13 AM
Very skilfully manages to imply he's an egotist with no sense of quality control. The anti-Gervais brigade on here should feel vindicated. It's one thing for us to speculate about this on instinct and another when someone who's worked with him for 10 years confirms it, whilst also literally calling him a cunt. Good stuff!

I didn't get that impression at all.  If there was a genuine dislike for any given trait of Ricky Gervais, then I'd say that it could be read that Stephen Merchant finds Gervais' persona to be distasteful but has no such issues with the man behind the persona (other than his eating habits).  The "cunt" is said in jest and I don't see how you got "an egotist with no sense of quality control" from Merchant's words there.

I don't think that he and Gervais talk anymore and I do wonder if Merchant is resentful for Gervais making the Brent movie.  Also, personally I don't care for Gervais and his output at all these days but that's not going to cause me to project my own thoughts onto the views of someone else.

Bronzy

So when is Karl Pilkington going to get invited to the Oxford Union?

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Merchant is a classy gent. You have to admire his dignified, diplomatic approach to skirting the issue of whatever happened between him and Gervais. It's nobody's business, really.

The 'cunt' line is possibly a pointed dig, but it struck me as a stock bit of business: the sort of joke he's always made about Gervais.

For what it's worth, my take is that Merchant appears to be a nice man. A sensitive comedy nerd who struck gold when he met a fairly annoying and frustrating buffoon who happened to have a great comedy character in his back pocket.



the science eel

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on August 22, 2018, 04:06:01 AM
Merchant is a classy gent. You have to admire his dignified, diplomatic approach to skirting the issue of whatever happened between him and Gervais. It's nobody's business, really.

The 'cunt' line is possibly a pointed dig, but it struck me as a stock bit of business: the sort of joke he's always made about Gervais.

For what it's worth, my take is that Merchant appears to be a nice man. A sensitive comedy nerd who struck gold when he met a fairly annoying and frustrating buffoon who happened to have a great comedy character in his back pocket.

Well said.

neardark

Finding out that Gervais has the eating habits of a child has annoyed me more than anything else he's done.

Twit 2

Quote from: St_Eddie on August 22, 2018, 03:21:58 AM
I didn't get that impression at all.  If there was a genuine dislike for any given trait of Ricky Gervais, then I'd say that it could be read that Stephen Merchant finds Gervais' persona to be distasteful but has no such issues with the man behind the persona (other than his eating habits).  The "cunt" is said in jest and I don't see how you got "an egotist with no sense of quality control" from Merchant's words there.

I don't think that he and Gervais talk anymore and I do wonder if Merchant is resentful for Gervais making the Brent movie.  Also, personally I don't care for Gervais and his output at all these days but that's not going to cause me to project my own thoughts onto the views of someone else.

Even taking into account my confirmation bias I think that is a very generous assessment. I'll type up the bits that made me come to my initial conclusion later if I get a chance.

thraxx


All of this dodges the real issue from this debate: How did Merchant generate the willpower to not star at the interviewers legs?

ASFTSN

I loved how he managed to not get the name of People Just Do Nothing right in exactly the same way as the wanky record exec did in the actual show.

clarkgwent

Speaking of Gervais and further ed, why does his wiki say he got a 2.1 when he got a 2.2?

olliebean

I think it's interesting to look at the decline in quality of Gervais' work in light of Merchant's comment that he (Gervais) used to be very lazy, but that has changed. Presumably this means he does "his" best work when other people have to pick up the slack for him.

up_the_hampipe

It's possible that nothing bad actually happened between Gervais and Merchant. People do move on.

rm2kmaster

Why has Merchant developed a bit of an American twang?


Brundle-Fly

Quote from: rm2kmaster on August 22, 2018, 09:50:59 AM
Why has Merchant developed a bit of an American twang?

Because he has spent so much time in L.A.?

Depressed Beyond Tables

Quote from: clarkgwent on August 22, 2018, 09:01:45 AM
Speaking of Gervais and further ed, why does his wiki say he got a 2.1 when he got a 2.2?

Not measuring from the base probably.

Re: Merchant. His long hair flaps around at the back a bit. That distracted me. Is that a bald spot technique?

St_Eddie

Quote from: Twit 2 on August 22, 2018, 08:09:28 AM
Even taking into account my confirmation bias I think that is a very generous assessment. I'll type up the bits that made me come to my initial conclusion later if I get a chance.

Please do.  I'd be interested to see your reasoning.

Quote from: up_the_hampipe on August 22, 2018, 09:37:02 AM
It's possible that nothing bad actually happened between Gervais and Merchant. People do move on.

My thoughts exactly.  I'm sure we've all got plenty of friends who just simply followed different paths in life to ourselves.  I know that I do.  There's no animosity there, it's just that we slowly drifted apart.  I'm not saying that's definitely the case with Gervais and Merchant but I see no real evidence to the contrary.

Brundle-Fly

People forget that comedy double + acts have spent year in,year out in each other's company; hours together, writing, rehearsing, performing, touring, travelling, filming, recording, conducting interviews together that they see each other more than their own partners. That's why so many comedy partnerships (and bands) implode or simply want a long, indefinite break from each other.

As Merchant says, "The well runs dry." Probably, in more ways than creativity.

Utter Shit

If they genuinely did have a falling out and Merchant now hates him, I can't imagine he'd be casually taking the piss out of minor personality foibles and the like. If I was to take a guess at their relationship based on that video, I'd say he probably doesn't particularly have a lot of time for a lot of the shit Gervais says or the shows he makes nowadays, but still likes and respects him as a person. Even that is just guesswork really. But it stands to reason - as I've said before, most people who have worked with Gervais only have good things to say about him, and not just in the back-scratching way celebrities tend to; Doc Brown couldn't have been more effusive in his praise after working with him on Derek. I'm not going to argue that he's anything other than a tedious wanker on Twitter, nor that his output has been anything other than 100% dog shit for the past decade or more, but neither of those prevent him from being a good person, and if someone who knows him as well as Merchant doesn't criticise him, I'd tend towards assuming it's because he just doesn't hate him rather than there being an ulterior motive.

You really have to work hard to get much of an anti-Gervais vibe out of that video IMO, and I didn't get much of a feeling of there being anything deliberately left unsaid about him as a person - it just seems like Merchant doesn't rate much of what Gervais has done since they went their separate ways (which makes sense, considering Merchant is a massive comedy nerd and Gervais makes exclusively terrible comedy nowadays) but is too polite to just admit that he doesn't want to work with him any more. That's completely understandable, but doesn't necessarily mean he doesn't like him as a person. The cunt comment is an obvious joke, which, if you're going to try to take any meaning from it at all, to me implies their relationship is fine. You don't tend to casually call someone a cunt in public if you don't get on with them, unless you're Keith Allen.

St_Eddie


Artemis

From his comments in that video, I'd say there's no real animosity there. Merchant just recognises that at some point, Gervais got ideas above his station and he wasn't along for the ride. Fair play to him for that.

I agree that it's classy for Merchant not to wade in on what must have been a frustrating chapter, seeing Gervais taking something they both worked on creating, and using it to catapult his own career into a completely unjustified altitude. I'd be surprised if Gervais wasn't reviled by many in comedy/film with real talent.

rm2kmaster

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on August 22, 2018, 10:05:49 AM
Because he has spent so much time in L.A.?


I've been living in Yorkshire for 26 years and i've not picked up even a 't'.

Clearly it's an affectation.

Depressed Beyond Tables

There's more evidence of a rift between him and Gervias on his standup. Maybe a few hatchets have been buried since then.

the

Quote from: rm2kmaster on August 22, 2018, 09:50:59 AMWhy has Merchant developed a bit of an American twang?

If you're from the west country, your speech tends to have a deep 'R' sound, which is something that it has in common with most American accents. So I expect the American 'R' sound is especially contagious to you as a transatlantic Bristolian.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: rm2kmaster on August 23, 2018, 08:21:11 AM

I've been living in Yorkshire for 26 years and i've not picked up even a 't'.

Clearly it's an affectation.

It varies from person to person though, I had a friend who went to Australia for a year and came back with a full on aussie accent, and it took him about two years to go back to normal. And I've an Uncle who spent forty odd years in America and had the accent, but within about a year was back to his old English one.

Brundle-Fly

It's about fitting into that circle. He probably got his teeth whitened and gave up booze 'n' fags too.