Meet Ricky Gervais

Alchemy occurred following the recording of the ten minute short film, Seedy Boss. The seeds for true comedy greatness were sown, and what bloomed was The Office. Instilling a Spinal Tap like documentary style to the sitcom in order to capture more footage proved a shrewd move.

But equally ingenious, if not more so, was Gervais and Merchant's insistence that the role of David Brent should go out to Ricky Gervais – a man who had never acted before. Merchant explains, "Ricky's performance as David Brent came out of the box fully formed. He'd never acted before, never did stand-up before, never really written anything, but when we turned the camera on that character was there". As Michael Palin says, "The Office hit the right note of comedy at the right time".

Extras

To follow up the overwhelming success of The Office, Merchant and Gervais decided to employ a kind of Morecambe and Wise device of introducing characters that the general public are familiar with, but then spinning around expectations of them. This was one of the elements that made Extras such a success. Les Dennis said the send up of himself in the show helped him to draw a line under the press and public perception of him as Les Mis, whilst others, like Billy Connolly, simply found the show 'exhilarating'.

Life in Cartoon Motion

David Baddiel says the reason why Ricky Gervais has been so successful, is because he's playing a caricature of himself. Well, in the last few years this caricature has literally been drawn out for us all to see, as he starred in his own self-penned episode of The Simpsons. To add to the illustration element of his career, Ricky has also released four Flanimals books, which feature such eloquently named characters as a Lumpy Squint Sack, which cohort Karl Pilkington says, looks like 'a bollock with eyes'.

So, in a career that corners every aspect of comedy possible (and yes, that includes creating creatures that look like a bollock with eyes), what's next for Ricky Gervais, New Hero of Comedy? "Maybe a fitness video," says Ashley Jensen. Good call.