Whenever he faces a backlash for his jokes against the likes of trans people, Ricky Gervais has always been very insistent that no topic is off-bounds for comedy.
And while he has weathered criticism, he says the only group it’s ‘fine’ to mock now is working-class parents.
He said: ‘People understand most power struggles. They understand why racism, homophobia and misogyny are wrong, but they are very disparaging about the working classes. it’s the one thing that it seems to be fine to take the mickey out of with no blowback at all.’
However, he acknowledged that most of the sitcoms he watched in his formative years, such as Fawlty Towers, were about class. ‘We are obsessed with it, and so we should be, I think. I’m much more aware of it now. I’m not working class any more, but I was,’ he said.
The comedian, who was raised in Reading by working-class parents, was speaking on Radio 4’s This Cultural Life to coincide with the release of his latest special, Mortality, on Netflix tomorrow.
In his conversation with the programme's host, John Wilson, Gervais also acknowledged that he would ‘probably’ make changes to some of his comedy if he were writing them now.
‘You are a product of your time and you do make things for people of your time,’ he said.
‘I’d put trigger warnings on things, but I wouldn’t go back and change something [now]… Do I regret anything? No. Would I do things differently now? Probably.’
Speaking about his TV work he said: ‘I only deal in realism. I don’t do those heightened things. I don’t do surreal stuff. I don’t do fantastical stuff, I don’t do high concept, I don’t do time travel.’
Although his next TV project will be about a group of slacker alley cats…
• This Cultural Life will air on BBC Radio 4 at 11am on Thursday January 1.
