I had high hopes when I heard that Ricky Gervais’s new blockbuster Netflix stand-up special is titled Mortality. The idea of the sharp comic mind behind genius television such as The Office and Extras applying itself scalpel-like to the deepest questions of the human condition seemed full of rich promise. The reality, a parade of mundane whinges peppered with controversy bait, is rather more blunt.

Some of history’s greatest comedians have wrestled meaning and laughter from the topic of our inevitable demise, from George Carlin’s timeless routine suggesting we all get a two-minute warning to Norm Macdonald railing against having to talk about “battling cancer” instead of just getting sick and dying. Gervais, who is now 64, has himself explored grief in his series After Life. But if he has anything new to contribute on this darkest and most profound of subjects, then this special provides no evidence. In Mortality, death is barely an afterthought.

Continue reading at The Independent