Gervais’ superior brand of comedy

In a reversal of the usual order, Ricky Gervais’ work as a stage comedian followed rather than preceded his sitcom career. It is the success of “The Office” and “Extras” that brings us tonight’s “Ricky Gervais: Out of England -- The Stand-Up Special,” taped for HBO before a large and appreciative audience at Madison Square Garden’s WaMu Theater. (Does that become the JPMorgan Chase Theater now?)

While Gervais’ American live appearances have been rare, he has already mounted three tours in Britain -- Animals, Politics and Fame, in order -- from which he’s drawn much of the material for “Out of England.” Fame also provides the current stage set, with “Ricky” spelled out Elvis-style in lights -- through which he emerges crowned and robed to a fanfare of pyrotechnics -- and a lectern that provides a place to keep the can of ale/lager/beer/whatever to which he returns for refreshment throughout the hour.

Much stand-up comedy boils down to the rhetorical question, “Why are [other] people so stupid?” In the context of Gervais’ sitcoms, the incredulity is softened by the characterizations: Ashley Jensen’s Maggie, in “Extras,” may have been congenitally clueless, but Jensen gave her heart and depth, and Gervais’ own Andy Millman clearly loved her. His David Brent in “The Office,” though completely deluded as to his effect on the world, is finally a figure of sympathy.

As solo performance, however, it can sound harsh -- an annoying display of one’s superiority. Gervais gets close at times, in riffs on the obese and on a gullible childhood friend -- “I went to a school where all the other boys were idiots,” he says -- on whom he based the Gareth character in “The Office” (Rainn Wilson’s Dwight in the American version).

He also plays a kind of character here, of course, one that combines parts of his screen roles: David Brent for the dumb things he says himself, Andy Millman for his amazement at what others say and do. Because we know that he knows that we know that he’s manipulating the ironies, Gervais “as himself” can for the most part get away with the sort of comments that reliably brought his alter egos great grief. As in: “Steven Hawking -- he’s not a genius, he’s pretentious. Born in Oxford and he talks with that fake American accent.” Or “My greatest hero is Nelson Mandela. . . . Incarcerated for 25 years. . . . He’s been out for about 18 years now, and he hasn’t re-offended. I think he’s going straight. Which shows you -- prison does work.”

He’s at his best, in a way, at his most benign, analyzing folk tales and nursery rhymes and pondering the wonders of the animal kingdom. (“Animals” was the title of his first stand-up show, and he’s the author of a children’s book of invented creatures, called “Flanimals.”) Bits on “Humpty-Dumpty” (“If your surname is Dumpty, don’t call your firstborn Humpty. What sort of stigma is that, for a kid that’s already an egg?”) and “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” are unexpected and delightful.

Gervais’ interest in animal behavior comes from some deeper place and summons his best acting as he becomes a swimming elephant and a balding spider. (They lose their spider hair if you stroke them.) It’s in imagining the animal world that he becomes most human.

“You stroke a little spider, he runs back to the web and all the other spiders go, ‘What are you wearing a baseball cap for?’ ”

Spider (shyly dissembling): “Fashion.”

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robert.lloyd@latimes.com

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‘Ricky Gervais: Out of England -- The Stand-Up Special’

Where: HBO

When: 10 tonight

Rating: TV-MA (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 17)