Ricky Gervais talks about what makes him laugh

Author: Kevin Pang
Link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-0331-gervais-qamar31,0,3662172.story

This story was a Q and A with Ricky Gervais ( a British comedian if you didn't know). It kind of gave me a sense of what a Q and A is supposed to look like, which will help for our next story coming up. One thing that was stressed to us was to stick to a specific theme while interviewing our professional journalists. This article definitely has that: it's all centered on Gervais' opinion on comedy. What makes something funny? What's the difference between American and British comedy? I can understand why it's important to stick to a theme, because otherwise there would be no flow to the piece and the reader would get confused and bored. One thing that I noticed that I never considered is that a lot of the times, the interviewer didn't even ask a question; he just made a statement and Gervais would expound upon it. (For example, "Your podcasts had set a Guinness record for most downloads. It seems as if you're enjoying these audio shows"). I think this works because it makes the story seem more conversational. People don't go around constantly grilling each other with questions. They say something, and then the other person responds. It also ended with a great, humorous quote from Gervais...I think it definitely "ended with a bang" like we talked about in lecture.