David Brent, erstwhile manager of Wernham Hogg and noted chilled-out entertainer, hasn’t been seen on our screens since the BBC’s hit sitcom The Office bowed out with a Christmas special in 2003 (save for the odd viral video or charity special). Over a decade on, Ricky Gervais is bringing his most famous comic creation to the big screen in David Brent: Life On The Road; the first trailer has now arrived.
It’s a new office (the original Slough building which housed Wernham Hogg has sadly since been demolished) but everything feels familiar: the drab cubicles, the mockumentary realism, and Brent himself – in his ill-fitting suit and creepy goatee, making all around him uncomfortable with inappropriate jokes and unsolicited songs. Truly, it’s like he’s never left.
The new feature-length film sees Brent juggling dual roles as a sales rep and wannabe singer-songwriter. His attempts to make it big with his band, Foregone Conclusion, performing classic songs like ‘Equality Street’ and ‘Please Be Kind To The Disabled’, are unlikely to go well.
Written and directed by Gervais himself (original co-writer/director Stephen Merchant has not joined him for this one), David Brent: Life On The Road arrives in cinemas on August 19.