Recently, Gervais came to understand that there are 56m people in Britain he cannot reach and does not wish to. This was actually the insight of Stephen Merchant, his writing partner for The Office and Extras. Each TV series settled at 4m viewers. "I said to Steve, that's our limit. We could make 10m people sit down and 6m people would walk out, right? That's fine by me; that's great. But isn't it weird?"
Then the pair were in a hotel room during the Edinburgh Festival, watching Pop Idol. Most viewers tune in because of the preliminary rounds, Gervais says, in which people who are bordering on mentally ill compete for a chance of fame. "We were watching these people come on and do really strange things, and argue back and cry, and fight with the judges. Steve turned to me and said, 'I know why there's only 4m, because we watch this and go, God, it's embarrassing. Most people watch this and go, I can do better than that. Most people who watch Pop Idol are like the people that enter Pop Idol. That's why there are only 4m people left to like The Office.' And Extras. It's fascinating."
Gervais acknowledges that this is exaggerated: there will be people who don't watch Pop Idol and do understand The Office but simply don't like it. Even so, he does not want the other 56m, because they mean compromise. That's why, when the BBC tried to put Extras on BBC1, he refused. With The Office, some people — "producers and that" — pointed out things that would alienate viewers, and told him he cared too much for his craft. "I said, I'd rather this be a million people's favourite show than 10m people's 19th favourite. We stuck to our guns. In fact, we went further. We were slightly disappointed with the pilot, because we thought it looked too sitcommy, and went back to the pre-pilot: the bleakness, the gaps, the futility of existence, the honesty — the cracks of life."
That's enough of his credentials. By now, either you know you are one of his 4m, and are still reading, or you believe you should be on Pop Idol, in which case you have turned the page. Unless you think he is an arrogant snob, of course. And what 4m people want to know is: why is Flanimals so dark? Is Ricky Gervais a nutter? Potted history of a comic: conceived by accident, "a mistake". Three much older siblings. Father a French-Canadian labourer, a lapsed Catholic who "got up every day at 5.30am, made a pot of tea and got picked up by a bloke in a van". Mother C of E, a dinner lady. Happy childhood. Thought everyone lived in a three-bedroom house on a 1950s council estate, with church, school and clinic in a line outside the front door. Unaware he was working class until university, where other students spoke like Prince Charles.
At home, joking was a survival skill and sulking a sin. "The whole point of my family was taking the mickey out of the one sitting next to you," Gervais says. "That seemed to be the Reading way. Everything was fine as long as you never got the hump." Gervais loved his mother's wit, which he taped for a radio show. "She used to say stuff like, 'You're about as much use as a one-legged man in an arse-kicking contest.'" She died of lung cancer as The Office began.
Bullies are a theme in The Office, but Gervais was never a victim: "I didn't know any." He thrived at school, where he had friends and loved learning, "because I was good at it and people were proud of me". At Ashmead comprehensive in Reading he became one of six in his year to go to university. He chose biology, then changed to philosophy.
By the age of eight, he could read people. "I remember the day I became an atheist," says Gervais. "I was doing my homework. I'd been to Sunday school from the age of five to eight. I had gold stars and used to win Jason in the Lion's Den books, and everything was great. And, er, I f***ing loved Jesus, I thought he was brilliant. What a great man." Then his brother Bob, who was 19, came in and took an interest in the homework. He asked Ricky why he believed in God. "And my mum got nervous. My mum went, 'Bob' [in a warning voice] and I thought, something's up. Then he went, 'Well, what proof is there?' My mum said, 'Of course there's a God.' He went, 'No, I'm just asking.' And I said something ludicrous: they've found evidence, they've found his blood in a bottle. I was just guessing. And Bob laughed. I could tell just by looking, that he was telling the truth and my mum was lying. I knew the truth in that instant. That's why I put such a value in body language."
You should write about what you know, and the creator of David Brent knows underachievement. For much of his twenties he stayed on at university as the student union's entertainment manager. True, at 21 he had been lead singer in a band called Seona Dancing, which reached the top 79 in the charts. And he was manager of another group, Suede, before anyone had heard of them. But really these were the years of watching TV and witnessing bad comedy. He lived with Jane Fallon, his girlfriend — now a successful TV producer, then a reader of scripts for a literary agent — in bedsits, never had money and seemed destined to exist like a student for ever.
"One flat had no heating," says Fallon, "and we'd go to the pub and buy a pint each to last all night, just to stay warm. Ricky and I were the most unambitious people ever." She broke out first, as a script editor on EastEnders. Then Gervais lucked into a job as "head of speech" at Xfm, the London radio station. He was 36.
Fate did the rest. First it delivered Stephen Merchant, the future co-author of The Office, as his assistant at Xfm. Gervais liked making his colleague laugh, and acted out an idea for a seedy boss. But he was, says Merchant, "the worst boss I've ever had. Because Ricky's not like a proper boss; he was officially my boss, but it was ludicrous. I went up to London thinking he was like a big media hotshot, and I turn up and he's wearing sweatpants and a vest, or something, and clearly didn't know what he was doing". Merchant, the more responsible of the two, stayed three months. Later, he had to make a film as part of a BBC training course, and asked Gervais to act the sleazy boss character. Gervais had no experience of writing, acting or directing, but this short film is what the BBC saw. Then Xfm made Gervais redundant, and he used the money to spend six months writing a script that became The Office.
So, is he a nutter? At Xfm, Merchant must have had his doubts. "The thing about Ricky is — I mean, I'm not just trying to slag him off — he's a nightmare to work with. Because he's like a child. You know, those sort of kids you see in those documentaries where they've put a secret camera in someone's house on a council estate somewhere, and they've given the kids something like Kia-Ora, and they're just so wild because they're not supposed to have E-numbers or tartrazine, and they're like frenzied, smashing the place up... That's what Ricky's like, constantly."
Time to come clean: it's not true. Ricky Gervais is one of the sanest men you could meet. He has been with the same girlfriend for 20 years. He has deeply sane attitudes to fame and money. At first he accepted corporate work, as it seemed obscene to refuse sums his dad had needed a year to earn. Then he stopped, out of self-respect. Recently he declined £1m to do a television commercial. The advertiser doubled the offer to £2m, and still he refused. He knows what matters: between 9 and 4 it is meaningful work, and out of hours it's his friends, who are the same friends they have always been. Above all, he has integrity. His work is honest and so is he. If you are among the 4m, then really you knew that already.
