Entertainment
Derek’s a slow burner that just grows and grows
TV Watch with Dave O’Connell
Maybe Ricky Gervais was astute enough to know that his next comic creation had to be something other than a parody of himself – but he must have had a hard sell to convince Channel 4 that Derek was the way forward.
On any level, Derek shouldn’t be funny, and it’s not – at least not in the way that The Office or An Idiot Abroad was – but it touches a chord that makes you realise why Gervais says this is his favourite character yet.
Derek Noakes is what we might call a bit simple but he finds a job, a home – and effectively a family – in a nursing home where other birds with broken wings congregate so they can fly together.
The programme schedulers describe it as a bittersweet comedy and that’s what it is, because while there are laughs – and humour occasionally bordering on the distasteful – there is also a strong moral theme and a compassionate commentary on the lives of people who might live on the margins.
The scenario is simple – Derek Noakes works in the nursing home, where his fellow staff are led by Hannah, a woman who manages the centre with ability and empathy, both for her employees and her residents.
The workers are a disparate group; Vicky, a reformed wild child who found a vocation when she did her community service at the home; Dougie, a hapless handyman (Karl Pilkington from An Idiot Abroad), and Kev, a man for whom a can of beer is as vital as fresh air to everyone else.
They’re joined by ex-soldier Jeff, the new guy for this second series, and clearly this is a complex character who will unfold – or unravel – as the series goes on.
And the other new arrival into the nursing home is Derek’s hard-living, hard-swearing, hard-drinking Irish dad, Anthony (acclaimed actor Tony Rohr, who isn’t Irish at all).
It’s a fascinating dynamic between father and son, who were not so much estranged as living in parallel worlds – summed up by the fact that the only picture Anthony had of his son was one of him as a small boy.
The one recognisable characteristic between then and now is Derek’s hair, because he has what might be described as a sort of Sixties style – albeit it one that was only fashionable even then in places that time forgot – combed hard to the scalp and caked in grease.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.