The Office has won the Best Sitcom trophy every year since it came to our screens in 2001 but other writers can breathe a sigh of relief as Gervais and his team decided to bow out with a two part Christmas finale after series two ended. they’ll just have to hope that the project he and Merchant are working on as we speak is a surprise disappointment! Somehow I doubt it...

Ricky wants Samuel for new show - April 04
Ricky Gervais badly wants the King of Cool, Samuel L Jackson, to appear in a cameo role in the pilot for his new comedy, Extras.

Extras is to be a comedy show about struggling television, er, extras and Ricky has put a call out to Samuel. "We desperately want Samuel L Jackson for the pilot episode, so if you can put the word out, get Sam to call me," he joked.

"Tell him Ricky Gervais wants him. The weather here is bad, we’re really badly paid and I make things up as I go along - if he doesn’t jump at that, then he’s a fool."

Ricky meanwhile was part of a charity show organized by The Who’s frontman Roger Daltrey for the Teenage Cancer Trust. Part of Ricky’s routiene included such cringing gems such as describing wheelchair-bound Stephen Hawking as "lazy", and stating that if you’ve got shares in Oxfam, you’ve done well, on the grounds that "there’ll always be famine".

Co star ’dripping with love’ for Ricky - March 04
Ricky Gervais recently played it straight for an episode of spy drama Alias, leaving star actress Jennifer Garner, a-hem, ’dripping’.

Jennifer told Nuts magazine she was " I was just completely starstruck. He’s got such an impish twinkle - I’m dripping with love for Ricky." She added: "He’s such a blast. We’d be doing some heavy scene about a bomb or something and he’d be squealing with laughter. He’d say: ’Look at you guys taking stuff like this so seriously’.

"We had a hard time not laughing when he was there. I’d love him to come back and work with me again." Ricky plays a terrorist bomber called Danny Ryan in the episode broadcast in the US. But Jennifer said that he found it hard coping with the shows hectic shooting schedule.

"He didn’t know what hit him. He only worked eight hours a day on The Office. He was used to starting at 10am and finishing at 6pm or something ludicrous like that. But we’d start at four in the afternoon and keep going until four or five the next morning. He was one very unhappy British person but it was just so much fun watching someone work the most hours he’d ever had to do in his life, and trying to cope with it.

"He’d say: ’This is what you guys do everyday? You’ve got to be kidding. Do you really keep this up for 22 episodes? I’m used to doing six episodes a year and then having a lie down’.

The new series of Alias is being screened on Bravo in the UK from this Sunday, March 14. The episode featuring Ricky is expected to go out in June.

Can Ricky win a BAFTA? - 02/04
After the double success at The Golden Globes in America, Ricky Gervais and his Office may be in the running to scoop a BAFTA for the third year in a row.

Ricky is back in the running for this year’s best comedy performance award at the Baftas, despite the BBC accidentally leaving him off the original nominations list. Ricky and the team were the surprise (and possibly surprised) hits of The Golden Globes Awards - winning Best TV Comedy and Best Comedy Actor for Ricky. Since then America has gone David Brent crazy - with a cameo role being lined up in The Simpsons. Ricky as David will apparently join Homer and Marge after getting lost on holiday in America. Can’t wait!