Ricky Gervais wrote and directed a mockumentary feature with his OFFICE character, the Cheshire Cat-grinning, perennially inappropriate David Brent, and you can see him visit his Wernham Hogg office in the nostalgia-tinged trailer below.
We don’t see Tim, Dawn, or Gareth, and likely Martin Freeman, Lucy Davis, and Mackenzie Crook won’t be appearing, but we see that Brent’s reputation as an obnoxious, daft pain in the ass has preceded him as the paper workers are forced to listen to his latest garbage-written tune.
The actual film is apparently more of a road movie (hence the title), as Brent tries to mount a comeback with his band, Foregone Conclusion, but this is a great way to reintroduce folks to the character in the environment where we all fell in love with (or wanted to murder) him.
It’s arguable whether the David Brent character still has enough cachet to warrant a feature film, given his various music videos, Comic Relief appearances, “Learn Guitar with David Brent” Youtube series, and two cameos on the U.S. OFFICE. Why go out and pay 12 bucks to watch Gervais riff as a character he’s been playing, on-and-off, on the small screen for the past 15 years? But it’s clear in this teaser that Gervais still has a grand old time being abrasively stupid as the clueless, desperate Brent, and there’s always the possibility that the film will go further with the character than we’ve seen before. Brent’s a great way for Gervais to get away with the nasty, biting humor he’s sometimes chastised for, so hopefully the film is as mean, brutal, and hilariously frustrating as the best moments of the original series.
LIFE ON THE ROAD makes Kerouac twitch in his grave on August 19th, 2016 in the U.K., and likely sometime that month here in the U.S..
