Книга: Karl Pilkington «Happyslapped by a Jellyfish»

Karl Pilkington (born 23 September 1972) is a British podcaster, author, television personality and former radio producer. He is best known for the Sky travel series, An Idiot Abroad,^[1] which was also presented in the United States on the Science Channel, in Canada on Discovery Channel and in Australia on One HD, and The Ricky Gervais Show with Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.

Early life and education

Karl Pilkington was born, brought up and educated in Manchester, England at Ashton on Mersey High School. ^[2] (Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant contacted Pilkington's school after a conversation during their XFM show^[3] and discovered that he attained only one GCSE, in History, for which he achieved an "E" grade.^[4] Pilkington was surprised and upset at this as he recalled sitting through several other GCSE exams, as well as sending in a 'little clay man' for Art; a failure to register for the exams was offered as an explanation by Gervais and Merchant for his lack of other grades.^[5])

Early career

Pilkington had been working at XFM as a producer for several years, when he began work on The Ricky Gervais Show, broadcast on Saturday afternoons. At first he served purely in a "behind-the-scenes" role. As Gervais and Merchant began to invite him to make the odd comment, Pilkington's unusual persona came to light. Before long, Karl was included as a main element of the broadcasts, with large amounts of airtime often given over to his thoughts on various subjects, or various childhood stories.

In December 2005, Pilkington stood in for two BBC 6 Music shows for Nemone, and co-presented the shows with Russell Brand. They proved so popular that by the following April, Brand was working as a permanent DJ at BBC 6 Music, which was the forerunner to his Radio 2 show.

Celebrity

As a result of The Ricky Gervais Show podcasts, Pilkington has become a cult celebrity. He has often been mentioned in interviews given by Gervais, and is often the butt of Gervais' practical jokes. After saying "I could eat a knob at night" on the podcast (in relation to I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! contestants eating a kangaroo penis), Gervais encouraged his listeners to sample the sound bite and mix it into dance songs for night clubs. The phrase "I could eat a knob at night" has since spawned dance music mixes, T-shirts and merchandise. Pilkington has also said several quotes that have resulted in some publicity over the internet. Reuters, commenting on this issue, described Pilkington as a "phenomenon" who had made "Internet history".^[6]

On 23 November 2010 Ricky Gervais, while appearing live on Richard Bacon's Radio 5 Live afternoon show surprised Pilkington with an on-air phone call. This led to a conversation where Pilkington, who claimed to have been interrupted while grouting his kitchen, said he had not yet been paid for his work on An Idiot Abroad and concluded the interview with an off-the-cuff link into the hourly news.^[7]

Pilkington has worked independently of Gervais and Merchant on a number of projects. He appeared as a guest on the Nation 277 series Flipside TV, featured several times as a guest on The Culture Show,^[8] and appeared in several short films as part of the Channel 4 initiative "3 Minute Wonders".

Merchant and Gervais themselves have repeatedly denied claims that Pilkington's comic persona is their creation. In an on-air response to similar claims made by Chris Campling during a broadcast on XFM, Merchant stated that he would be "ashamed" if the radio show were scripted, adding that "If we had created Karl, I would not have squandered a character that good on this poxy radio station".^[9] Gervais concurred, pointing out as a comparison that writing a single series worth of half-hour episodes of shows such as The Office and Extras took the two up to a year.

Television and DVD

In September 2010 Karl Pilkington featured in a television series produced by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant^[10] called An Idiot Abroad^[11] on Sky1. The series documented a global adventure by Karl instigated by Gervais and Merchant in order to take Pilkington ‘out of his comfort zone’.^[12] The series consists of eight 45-minute episodes tracking Karl as he negotiates the ‘Wonders of the World’ in an attempt to broaden his horizons. The series is accompanied by a book^[13] published by Canongate and co-written by Gervais and Merchant.

Series 2 of An Idiot Abroad debuted on the 23rd of September 2011 on Sky1. Series 2 involved Karl travelling trying to find a list of the ultimate things to do before you die.^[14]

In June 2011 Karl won The Best Presenter Award for An Idiot Abroad at the Factual Entertainment Awards.^[15]

Pilkington appears in a twenty-minute interview on Gervais's live stand-up comedy DVD, Politics. The DVD of Gervais's film The Invention of Lying contains a short film called Meet Karl Pilkington, entirely devoted to documenting Pilkington's humiliating non-speaking caveman role in the DVD extra feature The Dawn of Lying. He was also invited to be an extra on the final episode of Extras.

Pilkington has also performed voice-over work for such clients as, One Stop Office Shop, FreeView, Vodafone, HMV, Sony PSP, W H Smith, Wickes, and Unilever.^[16]

Film

Pilkington featured briefly in Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's Cemetery Junction, set in 1970s Reading, England, about class, love and fulfilment.^[17] The film was released in April 2010. Pilkington played the role of a guest at a ball.

Books

Pilkington has written a number of semi-factual books after leaving his job as a producer at XFM.

• The World of Karl Pilkington (2006)^[18]
• Happyslapped by a Jellyfish (2007)^[19]
• Karlology: What I've Learnt So Far (2008)^[20]
• An Idiot Abroad: The Travel Diaries of Karl Pilkington (2010)^[21]

References

External links

• Official website
• Karl Pilkington's Profile on Xfm.co.uk
• Karl Pilkington's An Idiot Abroad
• Pilkipedia, the only online encyclopaedia and community based around Karl Pilkington, Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais.