Review: The Moaning of Life

[dropcap]K[/dropcap]arl Pilkington has returned to our screens once again, this time for a second season of his solo venture, The Moaning of Life.

Karl Pilkington in ‘An Idiot Abroad’. Photo: Flickr / kynan tait

Free from the humiliation Ricky Gervais and Steven Merchant put him through in An Idiot Abroad, Karl instead attempts to put his own spin on tackling some the world’s broadest, all-encompassing topics. While Season 1 saw Karl deal with issues such as ‘Marriage’, ‘Kids’, and ‘Death’, Season 2 will see him again travel the world, meeting some of the most experimental and radical thinkers related to the topics of ‘Art’, ‘Identity’, and more.

Having watched the first two episodes of the new season, it is clear that Karl has developed since he was first brought to a wider audience’s attention in The Ricky Gervais Show. Where he was once truly conservative, dismissive of all new experiences and travel beyond his comfort zones of Manchester and London, here he is actively seeking out those with new ways of thinking and behaving, getting enthusiastically stuck in to activities such as performance art and dance shows.

In all honesty, did anyone really expect to see the same Karl Pilkington that once said “I won’t be socialising. I don’t do that” willingly dance around half-naked in the middle of Times Square shouting at people to “slow down”?

This is a man who appears to have stretched his own limits, but also to have realised the secret to international popularity

Karl disagrees: “I’ve learned that even though I’ve travelled about, I haven’t changed that much.”

And of course he’s right. The personality traits which have made him a worldwide hit remain strong. While it would be easy to conceive Karl’s appeal as being solely in his discomfort, this is not the case – Karl’s appeal comes from his hilarious world views, particularly the way in which he phrases them.

As uproarious as it is to see Karl stood awkwardly in the middle of bustling crowd of leather clad, gyrating men (An Idiot Abroad’s episode ‘Route 66’ – seriously, watch it), it would still be difficult to top the hilarity of his assertion that “Parrots have gone a bit quiet since Pirates have gone”, or his film pitch of a woman having half of her husband’s brain inserted into her head.

Ricky Gervais. Photo: Wikimedia Commons / Matt Hobbs

There was a time when rumours began to surface that Karl was in fact a fake, an actor named Graham portraying Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s creation, one of the greatest comic triumphs of the twenty-first century. Of course, exactly what makes Karl so endearing is that he is so real.

If he was a fictional character, you might describe him as an everyman stretched to the point that he’s no longer relatable – the most ridiculous form of a little-Englander ever created, with a penchant for making unbelievably uninformed, yet definitive remarks.

Yet the fact that Karl truly is being himself, a real, rounded human being, shines through continuously in his work.

Of course, if we’re to accept that Karl has truly realised his own comedic potential, then perhaps Ricky Gervais’ constant assertion that Karl is a “little round-headed buffoon” is as ridiculous as Karl’s declaration that a slug is “a lonely insect”.

You can catch more of Karl’s exploits and his amazing non-sequiturs on Sky 1 at 9pm on Tuesdays, as The Moaning of Life continues.