Ricky Gervais On Db And Extras In Nme And The Sun


“No one?s bloody laughing…” Well, apart from Ricky G and David B that is.

Little fat man who sold his soul…

Ricky Gervais has been busy doing press ahead of the screening of the first episode of the second series of EXTRAS, which airs on BBC2 in the UK at 9:00pm tomorrow night. (09.05.2006 NEWS: DB ON COVER OF LTD EDITION RADIO TIMES)

This week’s NME (September 16) has a full-page interview with both Ricky and long-term collaborator, Stephen Merchant. Here’s the relevant bit:

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NME: How did you manage to bag David Bowie?
RG:
I met him at a charity concert. Obviously someone told him, ‘That’s the bloke out of The Office.’ Then I got an email that said, ‘I’ve watched, I’ve laughed, what do I do now?’
SM: So you tried to flog him the DVD and the book! Ha ha! David Bowie is a person of enormous fame and credibility. We used him [in the show] to accentuate the fact that he’s everything Ricky’s character isn’t.

NME: Has Bowie ? a man who was so off his head he claims he can’t remember an entire decade ? got a sense of humour?
RG:
David Bowie is one of the funniest people you will ever meet. You forget that he’s still David Jones from Beckenham. When he goes home he still kicks his shoes off and sits in his slippers watching telly.

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Meanwhile, Tomorrow’s Sun newspaper has a full page interview with Ricky, in which some of the first details of the song performed by David are revealed thus:

Bowie even writes and performs a song about Andy, which goes: ?Little fat man who sold his soul, little fat man who sold his dream, chubby little loser . . . pathetic little fat man, no one?s bloody laughing.?

You can read the whole article before the newsagents even open online here.

While we’re on the subject of that song (I can’t reveal the title just yet), I don’t think I’m giving anything away when I say that, despite the comedy angle, to these ears the piano backing and vocal melody could almost be a Hunky Dory outtake…kind of a shame it wasn’t used for a legit Bowie recording in a way.

As I say, the second series of EXTRAS starts on BBC2 in the UK at 9:00pm tomorrow night, Thursday, September 14th. The first show features Orlando Bloom, and you can see the David Bowie episode next week on the 21st.