Xfm’s The Ricky Gervais Show: Why Fans Continue to Obsess Over This 20 Year Old Tinpot Radio Show
Twenty years ago, the first recorded episode of The Ricky Gervais Show aired on the London-based alternative radio station Xfm. A local radio station that deviated from mainstream radio, Xfm was by no means popular. The Ricky Gervais Show itself was self-admittedly poorly planned, often inappropriate and sometimes nonsensical. Yet, who would have guessed that twenty years later the show’s fanbase would be on the rise?
Xfm was founded in London in 1992 by Sammy Jacob and Chris Parry. After five years of development, Xfm went permanently on air in 1997 and around this time, hired a new head of speech. The man they hired was a then unknown Ricky Gervais, who had previously worked as an events manager for the University of London Union. Having bluffed his way into a job he didn’t know how to do, Gervais convinced his superiors at Xfm that he needed an assistant.
When the applications began to come in, Gervais selected the first curriculum vitae that was handed him which belonged to one Stephen Merchant, a college graduate of the University of Warwick. Despite the age difference, (Gervais was 14 years his senior) Merchant and Gervais instantly hit it off over their shared sense of humour and music taste.
Together, they hosted their own Saturday radio show throughout most of 1998. Features created by the pair included ‘Xfamily Fortunes’, ‘Make Ricky Gervais Laugh’ and ‘Song for the Ladies’. The show never had a large audience. Gervais would remark:
“It’s a tinpot radio station… It’s not even the biggest radio station in the building.”
Regardless, this did not stop the pair from entertaining themselves with the show, engaging in alternative comedy and playing their favourite tracks. Unfortunately, the fun couldn’t last forever and in August 1998 the station was purchased by the Capitol Radio Group. Merchant and Gervais took voluntary redundancy shortly after.
What would happen in the next three years is something no one could have anticipated. In this time, Merchant and Gervais would pitch a sitcom to BBC. After much back and forth debate, they were eventually given the creative freedom to bring their vision to TV and in 2001, The Office was born. A cultural phenomenon, The Office quickly took on a life of its own winning British Comedy Awards, Golden Globes and critical acclaim. In the three years since being laid off from Xfm, Gervais and Merchant had become the new BBC darlings of comedy. And thus in 2001 in the midst of The Office craze, Gervais and Merchant were invited back to Xfm.
In September of that year, Gervais and Merchant returned to their old station as conquering heroes. Having gone from zeros to heroes, they were welcomed back as part of an attempt to revitalize the station and increase listening figures. Only this time, they were not alone. They were assigned their own DJ to run the radio desk for them: a man from Manchester named Karl Pilkington.
Pilkington had moved to London from Manchester after being hired by Xfm as a producer. He was initially a background figure in Gervais and Merchant’s afternoon show; however, Merchant and Gervais soon began to frequently ask for his views on the various topics they were discussing. It became quickly clear that Karl had a one of a kind outlook on life as his hilarious and bizarre musings were revealed. Gervais and Merchant quickly realized they had struck gold with Karl, highlighting questions like ‘have you ever used a Y-front properly?’ and statements such as ‘you never see an old man eating a twix’ as textbook examples of Karl’s eccentricity. Karl, who was initially quite shy speaking on air, gradually opened up and began telling increasingly bizarre stories from his childhood, much to Gervais and Merchant’s glee. Some fan favourite stories include the time Karl’s brother drove a tank to a local shop to buy a packet of fags while in the army and the time his childhood neighbour kept a horse in her house.
As the show progressed, Karl became a reluctant focal point of the Saturday afternoon show. Despite Gervais and Merchant’s view of Karl being an incompetent producer, Pilkington’s features such ‘Educating Ricky’, ‘Rockbusters’ and ‘Karl in a Film’ became staples of the show and have since become cult favourites among the show’s fan base. Less successful but equally hilarious features included ‘Cheap as Chimps, ‘Songs of Phrase’, ‘Do We Need ‘Em?’ and ‘The Rice is Right’.
While Merchant and particularly Gervais put considerably less effort into the show’s preparation, their on the fly comedy and responses to Karl’s opinions kept the show endlessly entertaining. They also maintained a passion for the music output, taking care to handpick their favourite tracks and never being afraid of offering their honest and unfiltered music opinions. The final product of the show was ultimately a chaotic, disorganized and hilarious comedy show littered with carefully chosen great music. The three also dared to push the absolute limits of day time radio, walking an extremely fine line between daring and offensiveness. Between swearing on air, discussions about sex and cutting edge satire, it is a miracle the day time radio show stayed on the air as long as it did and we are grateful for it.
Gervais, Merchant and Pilkington often dismayed at the poor quality of the show, in terms of its poor planning and chaotic nature. What none of them could have ever anticipated is how many people would be listening to these shows twenty years later. Unbelievably, there are swarms of people all over the world who listen to these shows religiously. The Ricky Gervais subreddit, (r/rickygervais) which is primarily dedicated to Xfm shows, is subscribed to by 33.9 thousand users. The shows that have been uploaded to YouTube by channels such as Man Moth average hundreds of thousands of views. New compilations of the show are uploaded regularly and are littered with people who’s nightly ritual is listening to these shows before bed.
To what does the show owe its long lasting success? Aside from the sheer quality of the comedy and its authenticity as a radio show, this section from series 2 episode 15(42:43) perhaps explains it best:
Ricky: This isn’t a radio show, is it? I’ve just suddenly caught myself. This is nothing.
Karl: I’ve told ya that before. It’s been bad today.
Ricky: No but I mean-it’s the way, this casual way. It’s like we almost have no regard for our listener. And I’m not proud of that, I just don’t know what to do about it. Do you know what I mean? I don’t know how to do this properly (…) I mean what are the figures like? Do people listen to this show?
Karl: I’ll find out for ya.
Ricky: You keep saying that.
Karl: But, erm, anyway there’s this parrot…
Ricky and Steve: (chuckling)
Steve: I mean Rick, it’s unique if nothing else.
