Ricky Gervais talks Derek Series 2

The following transcript is an excerpt from Rickys interview with Ross and Nightmare on Black Sky Radio which you can listen to in full here

Ricky Gervais on Season 2 of Derek 

"The old characters are back and we've got a few new ones. There's a new character I'm trying to develop as the enemy within. As real as Derek is, in all its 'gritty reality' it's sort of like a collection of little fables. They're fairy tales and the essence of Derek is 'kindness' trumps everything, so the 'sit' in the 'sitcom' is people thrown together in a little place, outsiders all forgotten and together their kindness amongst each other wins, beats the world. The enemy, the nemesis, is the outside world. Very often people come in and they don't understand it, they don't care about it."

GEOFF 

"The other theme is that kindness is infectious, but I thought I should have someone who doesn't quite toe the line because, you know, there's lots of stories every week about care homes where there's cruelty or people don't care... or there's negligence. So I thought I should have someone in there undermining it from the inside. And that's Geoff. He's an arsehole. I feel sorry for the actor (Colin Holt) who plays Geoff because he's brilliant and he's already hated on twitter because of the character. David Earl got that with Kev, the poor actress who Dougie referred to as "Mr Fucking T" got it too. But it's a lovely testament to how good they were in their role and how believable the show is."

DEREKS DAD

"Dereks dad moves in and it's not what Derek expects. He loves his estranged father coming back and being part of the family. He can't believe it, it's his best day ever. But he thought this was going to be a nice sweet old man and he's not. He's an old goat who still gets drunk, smokes and chases all the old ladies and Derek can't cope with this."

VICKY AND HANNAH

 "Vickys back and she's growing up fast. She's becoming such a brilliant member of society and a valued member of staff and it's about her journey. Another theme is the sisterhood between Vicky and Hannah. It's a lovely sort of girl power and Hannah really likes Vicky, she sees herself in her when she was younger."

 THE RESIDENTS

"The residents are fantastic, they're in their 80's and 90's. One of them, Margaret, is 94. She's the oldest working actor in equity in Britain. Not once have they (the residents) said "oh I can't say this" or "I can't do that". They love every minute of it and it's such a great experience. Why shouldn't you lose your fun side when you reach 80? You know? They can't run as fast, that's the only difference. There's this strange myth that you become a different species when you reach 80 and it's just not true."

DEREK streams worldwide on Netflix from May 30th 2014