Last night (March 6th) saw comedian, actor, director, and writer Ricky Gervais bring his totally sold-out Humanity arena tour to Cardiff’s Motorpoint Arena. The show was the first of two Cardiff dates.
The show started with opening act Doc Brown, although funny at times Doc struggled to get the Cardiff crowd laughing hysterically. The best part of his set was a rap about trying to put a duvet on the bed. Perhaps becoming a comedian who raps his jokes would be the best form of a career for Brown.
Then at around 8.30pm the main event had arrived. The lights dimmed and the arena grew to a hush as the capacity crowd awaited Gervais’ arrival. The music grew louder and eventually reached a crescendo as Ricky walked out to a huge roar from the Welsh audience.
As the night got underway with Ricky Gervais explaining he has “no idea” why he called his first stand-up tour in seven years Humanity as he “doesn’t like” and much prefers animals. The jokes were not for the easily offended as nobody and anything was safe from Gervais’ often shocking comedy style.
The Golden Globes, Caitlyn Jenner, children, Twitter and even his girlfriend Jane were targets for the comedian. Some of the jokes he was telling are not very good for retelling to your mates but they do make you laugh out loud.
The whole key of the show is Ricky reminding the audience that it is totally fine to laugh at anything and everything. In his words if you “can laugh at anything including yourself, you are bulletproof” wise words from a comedian who has earned millions by making people laugh at so called taboo subjects.
This is without doubt his most personal materiel, and even though at times the jokes are told for a shock factor there is always an underline of thought-provoking materiel. None of the materiel is told with malice and the crowd lapped up his unique satirical style.
As the evening drew to a close Ricky Gervais thanked the Cardiff crowd for being a great audience and left the stage to massive applause. The cheers were so loud that Gervais was welcomed back onto the stage for an encore.
The Humanity tour is not for the fainthearted or easily offended but if you are willing to go with the flow and laugh at anything then you are guaranteed a laugh-out-loud night out.