Derek

[greddie]

did anyone watch this?

thoughts and opinions?

it seems to have been aired as a one off, i guess in the hope that it gets picked up for a series of it.

it was good, a bit odd, it was like watching Ricky Gervais playing a special and wasn't overly funny, more depressing.

The one-off comedy is billed as the story of "a simple, vulnerable man working in an old people's home".

Some, including fellow comedian Stewart Lee, have said the character makes light of the "mentally handicapped".

But Gervais, who plays the title role, said Derek was not intended to have a "specific and defined disablity".

"Derek is a fictional character and is defined by his creator, me," he told disability rights campaigner Nicky Clark.

"If I say I don't mean him to be disabled then that's it. A fictional doctor can't come along and prove me wrong."

disability rights campaigner Nicky Clark:

"Instead of it being a mocking disintegration of a learning-disabled man -paraded for the amusement of comfortable unaffected people, it's the story that really needs to be told at the moment,"

(The campaigner has previously been a vocal critic of the comedian)

[SIRUS]

It was awful. Not funny and poorly executed.

Ricky Gervais isn't an actor. He has one funny role that has got increasingly worse since the office.