The Brent Goes On

For those who are fans of the original The Office -- the British version that starred series creator Ricky Gervais as 'David Brent' -- you might have withdrawal pains from there being no more.  And no more for the past far too many years.

Well...fret not.  David Brent lives!

It turns out (and some of you may know this, but I didn't...), but Ricky Gervais has gone out on the road from time to time and performed as David Brent...in concert.

As you may recall from the series, Brent was a deeply insecure office manager who always felt he'd been wrongly overlooked as a great rock star, and would periodically take out his guitar and perform songs at the most inappropriate time.

Well, apparently, as far as I can tell from interview snippets I've seen from Gervais on British TV, in the years after The Office Brent has become a rock music manager, who still dreams of becoming a rock star.  And he will still inappropriately take out his guitar and, rather than manage his clients, perform himself on stage.  (This during Gervais's concerts in England.)

It goes further.  On Gervais' YouTube channel, he's made a series of videos with David Brent, teaching how to play guitar online.  And it goes further still -- if I understood him correctly on a British morning TV show interview for season 2 of his Derek series -- it sounded as if he was saying that there was more to come from David Brent in the form of a special bringing us up to date on him.  I can't swear to that, but that's how it came across.

In the meantime, here's a guitar lesson from the fellow, along with a song he wrote about his hometown, Slough.