Ricky Gervais has a message of hope for Big Issue readers

This week’s Big Issue cover star Ricky Gervais may have made a career out of making people laugh – but it’s hope that he’s bringing to Big Issue readers this week.

The Office star’s message for everyone struggling at home is simple: “hope is everything”.

Gervais’ uplifting outlook chimes with the second season of his hit show After Life, which is now streaming on Netflix.

Beset by grief at the loss of his wife, Ricky’s character Tony developed a devil-may-care attitude to say what he wants, a sort of pseudo-superpower. In the second season of the show, he harnesses that power for good and to help people.

Despite the challenges people are facing at the moment, that attitude has been in evidence across the country, with plenty of people, groups and charities clubbing together to help others.

And Ricky is keeping the faith as we wait for the coronavirus pandemic to pass.

“On a graph over time, with all the little peaks and troughs, society goes up and up and up. It’s better today than 50 years ago and 50 years ago was better than 100 years ago and 100 years ago was better than 1,000 years ago. For everything – attitudes, life expectancy, all these things,” he tells The Big Issue.

“We’ve got to realise that it is a pretty good time to exist. Good people working in science will save us and show us the way and we’ll get through this like we always have.”

To read more from Gervais as well as fellow comedians Romesh Ranganathan, Rob Beckett and Russell Howard and whole lot more, get your copy of this week’s Big Issue magazine now.

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The second series of After Life is available on Netflix