Ricky Gervais and the Great Brain Robbery

It doesn't take Columbo to uncover numerous clear examples of light-fingeredness by disabled-mocking 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 kleptomaniac.

Taking inspiration from past works happens, sometimes with a respectful nod to the original but this is ridiculous. He's been directly and deliberately stealing original material submitted to publishers or production companies.

Alongside the blatant rip-off of my manuscript in the making of Flanimals, question marks hang over the originality of virtually all of Gervais' productions.

Past thievery includes Extras, which was directly stolen; concept, title and setting from award winning Australian pilot The Extra, conceived by Adam Wells and directed by Darren Ashton in 1999, and pending pre-action litigation it also now appears that Afterlife was also stolen from a submitted script. (Watch this space).





Even the originality of The Office, Gervais' ticket to the big-time has been questioned with its blatant lifting of concept, title and setting from The Day Today (BBC2 1994).




Aside from the dubious origins of major productions like Extras, The Office, Flanimals, and now possibly Afterlife, there are numerous other examples of plagiarism flying around. Here are a few of them:

He's been sued for stealing Aboriginal art:




He lifted the title of David Thorne’s hysterical compendium of online mischief; The Internet is a Playground for an article he wrote in the Huffington Post, changing one word of the book's title toThe Internet is MY playground :



Stewart Lee refers us to copying of routines and mimicking of style resulting in public confusion as to who had copied who.





The Invention of Lying is a Hollywood sugar-coated amalgamation of two Moliere plays; Tartuffe and the Misanthrope

etc. etc. etc.

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?


Savage: Gervais





+?




xavage@hotmail.com



 

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