I'm more than just Ricky Gervais' sidekick, says Stephen Merchant

STEPHEN Merchant has been responsible for some of the most groundbreaking and brilliant TV shows of the last decade.

With his collaborator Ricky Gervais, he has created two landmark television comedies, the immensely popular The Office and Extras.

He, Ricky and their friend Karl Pilkington have also entered the Guinness Book of World Records for having the most downloaded podcast of all time, notching up an eye-watering 280,000,000 downloads.

Their conversations have since been animated and turned into a highly successful cartoon, The Ricky Gervais Show, which has run for two acclaimed seasons on HBO and C4.

But now University of Warwick graduate Stephen reveals another string to his bow, one that not everyone knew he had. He is embarking this autumn on his first ever stand-up comedy tour, Stephen Merchant Live: Hello Ladies, which took him to Warwick Arts Centre on November 8 & 9.

The ostensible aim of the show is to help the lovelorn Stephen find a companion, but he is also out to prove he is more than meets the eye.

"To a lot of people, I’m just Ricky Gervais' sidekick, but I've been doing stand-up since long before I met him," Stephen told us ahead of his Warwick Arts Centre shows.

"I'm aware that for most people this is the first time they've seen me do stand-up so they won't know exactly what to expect. It's their first taste. That's what this show is, it's a taster, like those samples of cheese they hand out in supermarkets. I hope people say, ‘Hmm, I enjoyed that, I’d like much more of Steve’s cheese!’"

Stephen, Ricky, Jimmy Carr and Robin Ince once shared a bill in a show called Rubbernecker” at the Edinburgh Festival in 2001. Long before the success of The Office, Extras and latest TV show, An Idiot Abroad, co-starring Ricky and Karl, which has been the highest-rated Sky One programme for three years.

"Most people don’t know it, but I started doing stand-up after I left university. A lot of my heroes, like Woody Allen, were stand-up comedians and I always felt I should do it. I was good enough to get paid, I was a finalist in some comedy competitions, but somewhere along the way I lost interest. And once The Office took off, it just seemed easier not do it.

"I never got enough of a kick from performing to warrant driving up and down the motorway eating Ginsters in service stations at midnight. I used to look at Ricky doing stand-up and think. ‘Why’s he bothering? It's so much effort.’"

But then, all of a sudden, Stephen had a change of heart.

He added: "I just woke up one day and I had the itch again. I felt I’d never really nailed stand-up. So I started doing five or ten minute slots here and there and I’ve been pottering around the circuit for a few years now. This tour is the result of that itch."

Stephen Merchant Live: Hello Ladies ..., which is being filmed during the tour and released on DVD and Blu Ray by Universal Pictures UK on November 14, centres on the subject of the comic’s chequered romantic history.

"I talk about various aspects of my search for romance since the age of 16. For me, there's nothing funnier than sexual misfortune as a subject for comedy. Everyone understands what’s at stake and the jeopardy involved. There’s a weight to it. If you say to friends, ‘I went on a date last night and it didn’t go well,’ they’ll immediately lean forward. There's no way they're not intrigued."

The comic, who last year co-directed with Ricky his first feature film, the well-regarded coming of age story, Cemetery Junction, will also be addressing exactly what he's looking for in a wife.

"On a date, I’d expect her to contribute financially. I’m not a gravy train; she should not expect a starter and a pudding. Yes, I've made some money but I don’t see anything wrong with still going to Pizza Hut with a two-for-one voucher.

"What’s wrong with that? Any right-minded woman should think to herself, ‘This is the man I should raise a family with because he’s sensible with his money’. Think about it, ladies. It's Darwinian. You shouldn't mate with the guy who splashes his cash at The Ivy, you should mate with the man who cuts out discount vouchers from the paper. "

In the show, he also tackles the subject of his own fame.

!You have to acknowledge celebrity; it’s the elephant in the room. But it’s the least interesting thing about me. The interesting thing is how fame is not what you think it is.

"Some people seem to think I must be living it up in a mansion somewhere like Hugh Hefner. Believe me, I’m not! If I was living like Hugh Hefner, I’d be in a hot tub with two Playboy bunnies, not on stage in Leeds or wherever. I like to remind an audience 'If my life was better than yours, then I promise you I wouldn't be here tonight.'

"I thought that dating would be much easier after I became well-known and had my picture in the paper, but actually that just brings a lot of other complications.

"My favourite comedians are always the butt of their own jokes. You appear to have a natural superiority when you’re on stage, because you're the centre of attention, so I want to remind the audience that in my eyes they're superior. I want them to be thinking, ‘I’m here with my girlfriend – he's the one going home alone!’

"Of course, if you don’t do it right, people just feel sorry for you and can’t laugh. They think, ‘His life is so grim’. I don't want them to come to a comedy show and leave depressed and maybe hit the bottle...on my behalf."

The comedian, who has starred in movies such as Tooth Fairy and Hall Pass, is hopeful the tour will show a whole new side to him.

Tickets for Stephen Merchant Live: Hello Ladies ... are available from www.livenation.co.uk

Interview by James Rampton