Alex Jones joked about it being a "challenge" as she interviewed Ricky Gervais on The One Show. The presenter hosted the latest instalment of the BBC show with Vernon Kay, and the pair chatted to Gervais about his new series, Alley Cats. The adult animated television series follows a group of cats, and sees Gervais voice ginger tom Gus.
Clip and swearing jokes
A clip was played on the programme, and afterwards Gervais noted that it was only "half a clip" that had been shown. "Because there's lots of swearing starts," he said. "Which is an improvement on last time because last time I was on, I was plugging my mortality special and you couldn't show a clip. So this is an improvement, isn't it?"
"It's always a bit of a challenge," joked Alex. "We found 30 seconds without swearing," quipped Vernon.
About Alley Cats
Describing the show, Gervais said his character Gus was "like the leader of a gang", adding: "It's like a classic sitcom. It's a bunch of idiots trying to do stuff they're not equipped to do."
"So they just happen to be cats, you know, and it's a classic sitcom, but, you know, it's cats and they talk and they swear. But they just go off on adventures. They're often sort of influenced by a TV show. They're watching a TV show and they go, we could do that. And they go off and obviously hilarity ensues."
The voice cast includes Tom Basden, David Earl, Kerry Godliman and Diane Morgan. "I cast first, so I knew who was playing it," said The Office star. "So I could write them to get their personalities and their... so it seems very sort of real and natural and, you know, and they're just an amazing cast. They make it sort of seamless."
Warm moments and existential themes
When Alex mentioned that the show includes "really warm moments", Gervais went on: "Yeah, I just wanted people to love the cats. So it's about quite existential. It's about these cats. They live such short lives and they sort of know it and they want to pack everything in."
"And I just, it's true in real life. I, you know, I want my cat to have the best life possible. Because it's so short and I just want people to love these cats and root for them and like them whatever they say or do."
The One Show airs at 7pm on BBC One on weekdays.
