He’s perhaps the most deadpan man on the planet, has a head like a f***ing orange and is Ricky Gervais’s favourite toy. His name is Karl Pilkington and he is an idiot. So says Gervais and his creative partner Stephen Merchant who produce this Sky1 series An Idiot Abroad, which started on September 23, and forced their podcast colleague into taking several trips to see some of the amazing sights the world has to offer.
The joke you see is that Pilkington has no interest in traveling, is confused by different cultures and hates being taken out of his comfort zone. So the sadistic pair selected seven countries for the “idiot” to visit in what Gervais describes as one of the funniest and most expensive practical jokes he has ever performed.
Karl Pilkington goes to China
Pilkington’s first destination for An Idiot Abroad was China and more specifically the Great Wall, a choice that worries him no end because the people there don’t smile back at him and “they just wreck everything and make it weird.” It was even left to his comedic foils to arrange his accommodation, where the round-headed one noticed that his room was “quite Chinese.”
It’s amazing how he can remain utterly deadpan when he comes out with these ridiculous comments. As listeners to The Ricky Gervais Show or those from back in the XFM days will testify, most of Pilkington’s lines are instantly quotable and although there’s nothing here as great as “if it’s a potato or a nut, it’s a foodage” seeing him on a bus with no English speakers riding to the Great Wall muttering that he’s “stuck on here with a daft hat on not knowing what’s going on” did raise a smile.
Karl Pilkington is An Idiot Abroad
He does moan a lot. In fact, moaning makes up the majority of An Idiot Abroad, which actually isn’t too much of a shock given that Pilkington is very rarely impressed by anything or able to understand its purpose. He even complains that the climate of China would look rubbish in HD. The rest are extended scenes where the star talks slowly to the locals, pointing out that things are different from what they are back home and saying “that’s a bit odd” when he sees something new, then goes back to chomping on Monster Munch.
So after his weird bus journey and arriving at the Great Wall, he’s still not even impressed by its splendour and even less happy when Gervais and Merchant make sure he sees all of the wall. However, he did seem to enjoy watching some kung fu training and taking part himself. The moment where he was in full monk gear kicking and swearing at a tree was especially great and a bizarre enough sight that is was funny.
Pilkington, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant
The concept – if you could call him that – of Karl Pilkington is at its best when Gervais is in the room, as demonstrated by the brilliant opener where they are discussing the project and the location for that week, because never has a human being laughed so enthusiastically at a fellow man. That is revisited during the infrequent phone calls Pilkington makes to the pair where they just laugh at his misfortune and complaints.
It basically suggests that this sort of thing would work better if it was relayed to us at a later date in something like the Karl’s Diary section of the podcast where Gervais and Merchant would scold him for failing to understand what he’s banging on about. Somehow being there as it happens ruins the joke because part of the humour of Pilkington’s exploits is listening to him explain (or at least try to) in his own words- that’s what is funny.
If An Idiot Abroad is being made into a DVD and contains a commentary with Pilkington, Gervais and Merchant, that would be worth watching instead.
An Idiot Abroad is on every Thursday at 9pm on Sky1 and Sky1 HD.
Steven Cookson - Steven Cookson is a writer and attempted journalist based in Howden. Originally from Chester, that Hollyoaks place in North-West of ...
