Ricky Gervais has idea to bring David Brent back to TV
Ricky Gervais has revealed he is working on an idea to bring David Brent, his character from The Office, back to television in the form of a spoof music tour documentary.
The comedy star has recently performed a number of musical shows in character as the inept office manager, and more gigs featuring the Wernham Hogg employee and his (fictional) band Foregone Conclusion are planned for May.
Speaking to The Times newspaper, Gervais says he is now thinking of filming a TV series at the same time as performing some live dates.
He describes the idea of a tour as a "Trojan Horse" for the new TV project. "I want to do a tour, a little tour - and people think they're seeing a tour. I film it, but actually it's Brent who thinks he's making a Scorsese-type thing of On The Road. Of course, behind the scenes, it is so much sadder and more poignant. It's Spinal Tap meets sad Scorsese meets Anvil [the metal band]. It's more of the breakdown of this man who thought he was going to be something else."
However, Gervais stressed that, at this stage, "It's just an idea."
Speaking about the timing of bringing his character back, Gervais said: "The reason I didn't bring Brent back before is that I wanted to do lots of other things first, but secretly I do want to do something else [with him]. It has to be right, it has to be justified. It can't be an unwanted encore. It can't even be a wanted encore, because people don't know what they want."
Should the new series go ahead, it may end up as an online show rather than broadcast via a traditional TV network - Gervais is not yet sure, and he hasn't sold the rights to any networks. However he did mention in passing Netflix, HBO and the BBC.
Ricky Gervais's next TV project will be another series of his Channel 4 comedy drama Derek. A second series has already been filmed and will be broadcast later this year.
He is currently promoting Muppets Most Wanted, the film in which he plays an evil henchman working for an evil Kermit lookalike. Below is a clip from the movie:
The character of David Brent has already appeared in a number of online videos since The Office ended in 2003. In 2013 he created the 'self-penned' political reggae track Equality Street for Comic Relief, and then went on to make a series of 'self help' videos called Learn Guitar With David Brent. Below is the music video for Equality Street, which has been viewed nearly 4 million times to date.