The Difficult Second Album

Over the weekend I watched Ricky Gervais' follow-up to The Office, Extras. The first season contains just six half-hour shows in which a cast of "background artists", including Gervais as Andy Millman, eek out a living occupying the lowest rung of the showbiz ladder. Each episode features a dyed-in-the-wool star, with appearances from luminaries such as Samuel L Jackson, Ben Stiller and Kate Winslet. I gotta say, it is a brilliant show.

Playing the loser-in-denial is no real stretch for Gervais, and fans of The Office will feel right at home in these new surroundings. And lush surroundings they are -- the success of The Office has allowed the series a healthy budget for art direction, with sets ranging from a church cellar in Nazi Germany to a 16th century English country estate. Alongside Gervais, Ashley Jensen plays the blindingly stupid, yet charming, female lead Maggie Jacobs while series co-writer and director Stephen Merchant plays Millman's hopeless agent.

Each episode's guest stars play themselves, albeit a 'twisted' version from a parallel universe in which Winslet's a bigoted phone-sex guru, and ex-Trekkie Patrick Stewart is writing himself a role in which he has the power to disrobe women with his mind. A couple of the guest stars are not well known outside of the UK, which may weaken the appeal of those episodes to those of us not particularly familiar with British TV. The serious star power enlisted by the show never becomes a gimic, and is skillfully woven into the plot, spotlighting Gervais' and Mechant's comic genius. These boys are really leading the charge in British comedy.

Extras is currently available on DVD in Region 2 (Europe, Japan, the Middle East, Egypt, South Africa, Greenland). More details at Amazon.co.uk,