Ricky Gervais and the Great Brain Robbery
It doesn't take Columbo to uncover numerous clear examples of light-fingeredness by kleptomaniac TV unfunny-man Ricky Gervais. Far from writing and producing all of his own material, as he claims, Mr. Gervais appears to be a bit of a magpie and when it comes to stealing material sent in to publishers, agents or production companies in good faith, he crosses the line into criminality.
Alongside the blatant rip-off of my manuscript in the making of Flanimals, there are question marks hanging over the originality of other major productions. Past thievery also includes Extras, which was directly stolen; concept, title, setting, delivery, lock, stock and barrel from Australian Director Darren Ashton's award winning 1999 short film The Extra.
In fact Gervais seems to have a bit of a soft-spot for Australia. Either that or he thinks they won't notice him nicking their stuff because they're upside down. Aside from the dubious origins of Extras, he's already been successfully sued for stealing Aboriginal art:
Then there’s the lifting of the title of Australian author David Thorne’s hysterical compendium of online mischief; The Internet is a Playground for some drivel he wrote in the Huffington Post, ironically about the nature of creativity, something this celebrity fraud clearly knows nothing about. Gervais simply changed one word of the book's title toThe Internet is MY playground in the title of his puerile article about, yep, you guessed it, "dicking around" on the internet.
Combine these with all the other examples of thieving already in the public domain and it would appear that Mr. Gervais has a very nasty habit. Here are a few more:
Aside from mimicking his style and delivery, UK comedian Stewart Lee refers us to the direct theft of several of his jokes. His convoluted parody of The Boy Who cried Wolf fable being so closely followed by an almost identical routine by Gervais could not have been a coincidence. They were, in fact, so similar that Lee was later accused of copying Gervais' bland mainstream version by fans who were unaware that Lee's brilliant and unique work came first. Here's another couple form the plagiarist's corner section of Stewart Lee's website:
Even the originality of The Office, Gervais' ticket to the big-time has been questioned by more than one observer with its blatant lifting of concept, title and setting from The Day Today as well as numerous references to Operation Goodguys, a mocumentary packed with David Brents.
The thievery goes on. His film outing; The Invention of Lying is a Hollywood sugar-coated amalgamation of two Moliere plays; Tartuffe and the Misanthrope and I anticipate further legal challenges concerning productions ostensibly penned by Gervais but actually poached from submitted manuscripts.
Do you have a single original idea in your head Ricky? A title here, a gag there, a nod, a wink, a borrow from a dead playwright, misappropriation of indigenous art, a rummage in the submissions cupboard? When you steal other people's work and pass it off as your own their are consequences.
Savage: Gervais
With stolen manuscripts, the question is, who is supplying this dullard with the merchandise? Whoever it is would need access to the submissions cupboard. Without wishing to draw comparisons between sexual assault and book-molestation, the type of person who would have this access, (and the groping hands to go with it), is none other than producer/rapist Charlie Hanson, Gervais' erstwhile companion and the producer of After Life. Could we be on the brink of the #MeToo of plagiarism?
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