Gervais hits the jackpot

Most comedians spend the best part of a decade working the live circuit to get this popular.

In three years Ricky Gervais has been propelled from part-timer straight into comedy's Premier League. The Office has made him a national hero.

Now for the tricky bit. Having consigned David Brent to TV heaven he is undertaking his debut national tour.

Give or take the odd first-night wobble he has hit the jackpot again.

The title of the show is Politics, but this is virtually irrelevant. As Gervais notes in the middle of an anecdote about the sexual habits of minor MPs, he has a habit of digressing.

But this is part of his everyman appeal. This late bloomer may not have paid his professional dues, but he is clearly a pub raconteur of Olympian pedigree.

A warning though. This may well be the most politically incorrect show performed by a major star operating outside the Bernard Manning/Jim Davidson scampi-in-your-lap orbit.

Gervais's opening short film finds him outside Westminster mocking a wheelchair-bound passer-by (actually Ash Atalla, producer of The Office) and within 10 minutes of strolling on he has ridiculed both Thora Hird and Stephen Hawking as lazy.

It is not long before he smashes the unsound barrier by mocking Schindler's List and making gross-out jokes about gay sex.

Gervais explains that he went through his right-on period at university, but the proliferation of berets put him off. Home was hardly a hotbed of ideological purity either. When he put a picture of Che Guevara on his wall his mum thought it was Wolfie Smith.

Technically, he has improved exponentially in his short stand-up career, no longer pacing awkwardly or standing rigidly. The only time he was ever wrongfooted was when fans in the front decided to visit the bar.

A more experienced performer such as Ross Noble or Jack Dee would have indulged in gentle ribbing, but he merely chatted on. Size is not everything, but Noble and Dee would also have done more than an hour.