Ricky Gervais jokes he’s ‘reported fans for hate crimes’ after they previewed his new stand up show

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Ricky Gervais is refusing to reign in his famously controversial stand up routines, joking about his taboo subjects as he previewed new material on Wednesday night.

The comic, 60, performed at London’s Leicester Square Theatre, testing out new content for his upcoming stand-up show titled Armageddon.

Posting on Twitter after the show, Ricky quipped that his audience had been ‘reported for hate crimes’ for laughing at his jokes, weeks after Twitter’s ‘woke brigade’ accused him of hate crimes for his material about trans people in his recent Netflix special.

Ricky Gervais jokes he’s ‘reported fans for hate crimes’ after they previewed his new stand up show

Back to stand up: Ricky Gervais is refusing to reign in his famously controversial stand up routines, joking about his latest tour as he previewed material on Wednesday night

‘Another amazing audience at @lsqtheatre for my #Armageddon new material night,’ Ricky wrote on Twitter.

‘They laughed at things that shouldn’t be laughed at and I have reported them all for hate crimes. I’ll do more soon.’

The star also retweeted a string of complimentary tweets about his latest material, with one declaring him to be a ‘comic genius’ while another called it ‘a breathtaking performance’.

On stage: The comic performed at Leicester Square Theatre, testing out new content for his Armageddon show, and later tweeted about reporting his audience 'for hate crimes'

On stage: The comic performed at Leicester Square Theatre, testing out new content for his Armageddon show, and later tweeted about reporting his audience ‘for hate crimes’ 

Ricky previously admitted that he wanted to ‘try to get cancelled’ with Armageddon, revealing he is keen to push boundaries as far as he can with his long-awaited return to stand-up comedy.

He told Heat: ”I’m treating it like it’s my last one ever. It won’t be, but I want to put everything into it. I want to try and get cancelled. No, I just want to go all-out there.

‘It’s about the end of the world and how we’re going to destroy ourselves for lots of reasons, whether it’s media stupidity, or the actual end of the world.’

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Fans: The star also retweeted a string of complimentary tweets about his latest material, with one declaring him to be a 'comic genius' while another called it 'a breathtaking performance'

Fans: The star also retweeted a string of complimentary tweets about his latest material, with one declaring him to be a ‘comic genius’ while another called it ‘a breathtaking performance’

Ricky’s SuperNature gags which kickstarted a Twitter row 

Mocking up a debate over gendered toilets, Gervais starts the joke: ‘They are ladies, look at their pronouns. What about this person isn’t a lady? 

‘Well, his penis.’

‘Her penis you f****** bigot’.

‘What is he rapes me?’

‘What if SHE rapes you?’ 

Turning his sights onto a new branch of ‘woke comedy’, in which he says comics are required to sign a waiver before their sets promising not to say anything contentious, he jokes he would rather watch American stand-up comedian Louis CK masturbate.

‘Can’t mention him anymore. He’s cancelled’, he adds. 

Gervais later tells his audience: ‘You can’t predict what will be offensive in the future. You don’t know who the dominant mob will be. 

‘Like, the worst thing you can say today, get you cancelled on Twitter, death threats, the worst thing you can say today is, ‘Women don’t have penises’, right?

‘Now, no one saw that coming. You won’t find a ten-year-old tweet saying ‘Women don’t have penises.’ You know why? We didn’t think we f***ing had to!’

Discussing the minorities and the demographics of Britain, Gervais points out: ‘We’re 5 per cent black, 5 per cent Asian. 5 per cent LGBQT.

‘I’m a white, heterosexual multi-millionaire. There’s less than one percent of us.

‘Do I whine? No. I don’t mind’. 

In another joke towards the end of the show in which he addresses self identity, Gervais says he supports trans rights – a remark met by cheers by a few members of the audience.

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He adds: ‘Full disclosure. In real life, of course I support trans rights. I support all human rights and trans rights are human rights. 

‘Live your best life, use your preferred pronouns, be the gender that you feel that you are. But meet me halfway ladies, lose the c**k, that’s all I’m saying.’  

Last month Ricky angered Twitter’s ‘woke’ brigade following the broadcast of his Netflix special, SuperNature, which mocks cancel culture with jokes about trans people, Hitler and AIDS. 

The comic kicks off the show by describing comedy to the audience as ‘basically a bloke talking’, before deliberately failing to recall any ‘funny female comedians’.

Just minutes into his opening monologue, Gervais yawns to the crowd as he talks about ‘those old-fashioned women, you know, with wombs’. 

In one skit he says: ‘The worst thing you can say today is, ‘Women don’t have penises’, right?’

He at one point references his transition to becoming ‘Vicky Gervais’. 

The show sparked a backlash from LGBT groups and has seen Gervais accused of hate crimes.

His jokes were described as ‘dangerous’ material by an American LGBT rights group, while Stonewall accused him of ‘making fun of trans people’. 

In response, Gervais told The Spectator: ‘My target wasn’t trans folk, but trans activist ideology. I’ve always confronted dogma that oppresses people and limits freedom of expression.’  

Last month the star defended his decision to joke about ‘taboo’ subjects including Hitler and AIDS by saying he wants to take ‘smart’ audiences to a place they haven’t been before. 

Appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Gervais explained that he had added new material to the special, which he had taken out on tour before the coronavirus pandemic.   

Asked if he had to change jokes due to a long touring break in lockdown, Gervais said: ‘It was always evolving. 

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‘There was a thought, ‘Will this be out of date?’ And then I realized that when you’re dealing with, you know, famine, AIDS, cancer, Hitler, those dudes are evergreen. Yeah, so they’re not going to, they don’t date.’ 

Colbert, 58, said: ‘There is no audience that isn’t going to love that.’ ‘Boo! Not Hitler! It was a long time ago,’ Gervais said facetiously while laughing.

Colbert noted that people have to know they will be forced to deal with offensive subjects at one of his shows.

‘Like, you don’t go to a Ricky Gervais concert for just feel good,’ Colbert said.

Gervais responded: ‘No, they do feel good, and the aim is to make them laugh and they do laugh, but they know that I deal with taboo subjects. 

‘But I deal with taboo subjects because I want to take the audience to a place it hasn’t been before and there is a tension.

‘And I think people get offended when they mistake the subject of a joke with the actual target, and smart people know you can deal with anything, particularly when dealing with something like irony.’ 

The Office creator said that he explains irony at the beginning of his new show.

‘Humor gets us over bad stuff. That’s why I laugh about terrifying bad things. You know, that’s why comedians are obsessed with death because, you know, it gets us through… t’s an inoculation to the real things that are going to happen.’

'Smart people don't get offended': Last month the star defended his decision to joke about 'taboo' subjects by saying he wants to take 'smart' audiences to a place they haven't been before

‘Smart people don’t get offended’: Last month the star defended his decision to joke about ‘taboo’ subjects by saying he wants to take ‘smart’ audiences to a place they haven’t been before

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