|
An Idiot Abroad
An Idiot
Abroad
was devised by Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais and the concept is
that they send their friend Carl Pilkington to the seven wonders of the
world. Along the way Carl is put into uncomfortable situations for the
amusement of Stephen, Ricky and the audience. Very little time is
actually spent within each episode focusing on each wonder of the world;
rather the audience gets to witness Carl bumbling through encounters
with locals.
Stephen,
Ricky and Carl have long worked together on radio, creating podcasts on
a whole range of different topics. When the three of them are together
it is very funny as they balance each other out and they are able to
bounce off each other. By moving Carl to another country and having
Ricky and Stephen as the invisible puppet masters that balance is
destroyed.
Carl, on
the whole, simply comes across as idiotic and a whinger. It annoyed me
having to watch someone who clearly didn’t care that he was able to
visit the seven wonders of the world. Ricky and Stephen come across to
the audience as bullies. They intentionally choose things for him to do
and places for him to go too and they know that he won’t enjoy them.
This is
not funny or entertaining. The reason for this is that any ordinary
person would dislike doing these things, such as making cow dung
patties, and I don’t want to watch someone complain about things, even
if they are obviously disgusting or bizarre.
I was
very excited to see this show as I am a huge fan of Ricky, the creator
of Extras and The Office, as well as Stephen, he had a
role in and helped write Extras, and Carl has always made me
laugh. I thought that this show would be constant laughs but sadly I
found myself on laughing very rarely.
I found
watching this show tiresome and the only episode that was worth watching
was the final episode. In this episode the three men recapped the entire
series, showing a highlight real and joking between themselves about the
things that happened to Carl. If they had had this format throughout the
series then it would have been far more amusing. As it is the show is
ruined by the solitary nature of Carl’s roaming. Without Ricky and
Stephen there, or anyone else, to balance out Carl it just becomes a man
whingeing in front of some wonderful places that I would love to visit.
|
