👓 Seona Dancing | SeonaDancing.com

Read Biography Seona Dancing (web.archive.org)
Seona Dancing was a 1980s British pop group best known for providing Ricky Gervais with his first taste of fame. The band was formed in 1982 by aspiring pop stars Bill Macrae and Ricky Gervais. Their single "More to Lose", released in 1983, only made it to number 70 on the Billboard charts, and the band quickly disbanded in 1984. A year later, in 1985, a DJ from 99.5 DWRT-FM in Manila in the Philippines started playing a song called "Fade" by Medium (also billed as "Medium" by Fade). It became a runaway hit, and the angsty theme song for many Filipino teenagers in the mid 1980s. Eventually, the identity of the song was revealed as "More to Lose" by Seona Dancing. Bill Macrae faded into obscurity, but years later Ricky Gervais found new fame as the co-writer and star of the hit BBC comedy The Office.
He definitely had a different look when he was young!

📺 Embarrassing 80’s – Ricky Gervais & Seona Dancing | YouTube

Watched Embarrassing 80's - Ricky Gervais & Seona Dancing from YouTube

Seona dancing was a 1980s British new wave group, best known for providing comedian Ricky Gervais with his first experiences as a public performer. Although the band were not successful, their single "More to Lose" went on to become a teen anthem in the Philippines.

In June 1982, in his final year as a student at University College London, Ricky Gervais and his friend Bill Macrae formed Seona Dancing, with Macrae writing the songs and playing keyboards and Gervais writing and singing the lyrics. After recording a sixteen-song demo tape, they were signed by London Records which released two of their singles: "More to Lose" and "Bitter Heart". In 1983, the duo performed their single "More to Lose" on the ITV syndicated children's television show Razzamatazz. Yet, despite the promotion of "Bitter Heart" through its music video and "More to Lose" by its TV performance, both singles failed to break the Top 40. With "More to Lose" charting at number 117 and "Bitter Heart" at number 79 on the UK Singles Chart. After the lacklustre performance of their two singles, the band split up in 1984.

Gervais went on to have a successful international career as a comedian and actor, while Macrae later embarked on a solo career, though he has not made any real media appearance since. When Jimmy Kimmel asked about Macrae in an interview in 2014, Gervais said jokingly, "I hope he got fat too."

📺 Ricky Gervais: Humanity | Netflix

Watched Ricky Gervais: Humanity (2018) by Ricky Gervais from Netflix
Live performance of British comedian Ricky Gervais filmed in London's Eventim Apollo.
I watched this in pieces over the last two evenings and finished of the tail end at lunch today.

I’ve often thought of Gervais simply as a crass entertainer, but there are so many interesting new dimensions which come out in “Humanity”, they give me newfound respect for who he is and what he’s doing now. This is far more complex than just simple comedy, he’s doing something much more significant with this particular performance.

I also haven’t laughed this hard in quite a while. Tears, literally tears. Perhaps most interesting is that he’s got a much wider range of emotions which he’s playing off of here than just the humorous.

Gervais has some really interesting philosophy hiding in here among the dark humor. He has an interesting take on comedy and what it does and doesn’t target. The bit at the end on social media was particularly interesting. His take on “The Commons” is quite solid and is something I don’t suspect many could expound upon so eloquently.

During the portion in which he talks about his favorite Twitter response ever, he looked down at his phone to quote the tweet. I was reminded of some of the comedy greats I’ve seen at clubs late at night reading out of their beat up notebooks to try out new material. For a moment I thought, “perhaps Gervais is trying out some new material live here.” If it’s the case, then he was genius, though I suspect now that it was just a useful prop to add to the narrative of the joke. Either way, just brilliant. I wonder when we’ll see comics at clubs reading off of phones instead of the old spiral bounds? I wonder if it’ll play an better than the index card or notebook?

His closer with the story about his mum’s death and the wonderful prank on the poor vicar put a wonderfully fine point on the entire piece. It is humanity indeed. If there were a god, I’m sure he’d bless Ricky Gervais.