Alley Cats

The Office celebrated its 25th anniversary this year. It remains Ricky Gervais’ best and rightly most celebrated work. Alley Cats, on the other hand, feels quite a distance from those glory days. His animated series is firmly in late-era Gervais, of a piece with After Life or Derek, with all of his recent indulgences present: grumpy observations about life, back-of-the-class crudities, and regular U-turns into mawkishness.

Clearly, Gervais has found a comfortable creative groove to settle down into, an audience willing to listen, and a benefactor in Netflix willing to back him. Yet even with a fresh medium — it follows a Family Guy-esque animation style, no attempt at much advanced artistry — so much about this show feels just lazy and weak. Each of the six episodes runs to around 16 or 17 minutes each, and somehow they still drag, with barely a plot to speak of.

Ostensibly, the main narrative concerns a cute kitten named, erm, Kitten (Jo Hartley), trying to get back to her family, while a cadre of grubby alley cats, led by Gus (Gervais), teaches her about the university of life. Even that thin thread of story is largely disregarded for ambling, sweary conversations about nothing in particular — like a crude, semi-improvised version of Aardman’s Creature Comforts.

The level of swearing here feels particularly childish, maybe summoning the same juvenility that drives Seth Rogen’s Sausage Party, another deeply stupid animation for adults. But Gervais’ script (he writes and directs every episode) seems to simply find swearing in itself funny. Fine — if you are a 13-year-old boy. One select ‘punchline’ at the end of one scene: “Says you, you fucking cunt!”

Elsewhere, the material seems yet another opportunity for Gervais to air his politically incorrect grievances. He still seems angry about charities like Comic Relief and Live Aid, for some reason (it has previously come up in his TV shows and his stand-up). “Oooh, let’s save Africa,” moans Gus at one point. “Let’s do a fucking song and beg the West for money and then spend it on fucking corrugated iron to build a shit house.” Later, he does an impression of someone with learning difficulties. The bizarre tonal shift into emotional finales each episode — soundtracked to James Taylor, Cat Stevens and Coldplay, of all bands — feels utterly unearned.

If there is any saving grace to this all, it is in the talented voice cast, most returning players in Gervais’ regular ensemble. Sneery house cat Ponce, voiced by The Ballad Of Wallis Island’s Tom Basden, and crusty old Puke (who once “gave a hedgehog anal”), voiced by Brian And Charles’ David Earl, are the brighter spots.

Otherwise, it’s par for the course for this once-groundbreaking comedian. Gervais’ regular refrain, when faced with criticism, is to chastise anyone who might be offended. He has built his comedy persona around being a proud provocateur, immune to hurt feelings or oversensitive ears. The problem here is that for the most part, Alley Cats is too stale, too inert, too empty to actually provoke. It’s not that it’s offensive. It’s just that it’s not very good.