- Ricky Gervais does really expensive show, crows about it (the nastily smug “Ricky Gervais at Edinburgh Castle is sold out” poster promoting his ‘Fame’ DVD taking up most of the West End of Princes Street has been up for weeks now).
- Needless to say, he gets criticised for it by people – not least because he’s not the greatest stand-up in the world, as anyone who suffered through his ten minutes of the Diana concert – which came after he sold all these tickets – will happily back up.
- Also, it’s the same show as he’s been doing on tour for a long time, only at Edinburgh Castle.
- To deflect this, he’s giving some cash to Macmillan. Which would be fine, except…
- …he’s not telling how much money Macmillan are getting until next week, when it’s obvious that BBC Scotland won’t report it.
- Also, this has only been given after the gig. Hmm.
So in other words this is a fluff story planted by Gervais’ PR to try and put out some goodwill until he actually does give the money. Eight thousand tickets at £37.50 is £300,000; minus staging costs, I’d expect any good donation for this to be in the mid-to-high five-figure range and I doubt very much it’ll be that high. Prove me wrong, Ricky, prove me wrong.
F L I C K E R I N G / F R A M E 