Ricky Gervais, writer and actor behind the painfully self-deprecating humour in The Office and The Extras, ( or see the Ricky Gervais Microsoft Training Videos ) also holds a little known career as a skinny little prancing singer in an English synth-pop duo known as ‘Seona Dancing‘. Videos of their TV performances have inevitably surfaced on youtube, which makes all the funnier and stranger – a recent cameo by David Bowie on a second series of the Extras. Upon forcing his way into a conversation with Bowie at a lounge bar, Gervais in his role as bit-part actor tries to imply he suffers the same pains of super-fame as David “the man who feel to earth’ Bowie, and after shoving his foot deeper and deeper into his mouth, prompts a wonderfully savage improvisation from Bowie with heartfully sung lines such as “the little fat man with the pug-nosed face”. Such a delight to watch the camera keep switching between Ricky’s mortified face and Bowie’s vigorous delivery.
So Bowie might think he knows a little about scamming, having been the first rock star to float himself on the stock market ( Gained $55 million overnight based on the projected royalties of his first 25 albums over the next 15 years. Mmmm, speculative economics. ) – but for real insight into corrupted minds, we’d have to give Scorcese the nod. And the grim grain of the underworld he has portrayed so many times, is arguably seen in no better place than this Sesame Street Scorcese remix which matches gruff mafia voices on top of a day in sesame street, a superbly edited lil number. Found via the ever fruitful WMFU radio blog.