Ricky Gervais is 'trying to get cancelled' with new stand-up Armageddon

Virgin Radio

1 Feb 2022, 13:46

If anyone can do it, Ricky can. The super-comedian has a strange new ambition in sight. Yep, to get cancelled.

The After Life star spoke to heat magazine about pushing people's buttons in his next live tour Armageddon. He said: "I’m treating it like it’s my last one ever. It won’t be, but I want to put everything into it. I want to try and get cancelled. No, I just want to go all out there.”

He added: "It's about the end of the world and how we’re going to destroy ourselves for lots of reasons, whether it’s media stupidity, or the actual end of the world."

The multi-award-winning comedian told Wall Street Journal magazine recently: “There’s no subject you shouldn’t joke about. It depends on the joke. As a journalist, there’s nothing you wouldn’t write about. It depends on your angle, right? I think a lot of this pious offence comes from people mistaking the target of the joke with the subject.

“You can joke about anything, but it depends on what the actual target is. If you use irony and people see that at face value and think you’re saying one thing but you’re actually saying the opposite.

He told Yahoo UK previously: “Freedom of speech is not being free of any consequences, it’s being free of prosecution, and no one should be prosecuted for a joke. Now your employers might have something different to say, but a joke is a joke.

“What does annoy me is the hypocrisy of depending on whose side that person. The merits of a joke and principle in general should not be swayed by whose side that person is on politically... Either jokes are allowed or they’re not, you can’t pick and choose what’s okay to joke about.”

Amen to that.