Ricky Gervais

How Derek showed a softer side to Ricky Gervais

Derek turned out to be a beautiful, warm story of people who need love, who give love and yet are all too often sidelined in society.

Derek was a sharp yet sweetly observed study of misfits

With Derek, Ricky Gervais pulls back from the brink of the smug self-satisfaction that threatened to engulf his undoubted talent, portraying a simple souled character that it is clear he actually likes.

Ricky Gervais's Derek watched by 2 million on Channel 4

Great ratings and extensive social media chatter mean a full series looks likely.

Last night's viewing: Derek, Channel 4

If you were feeling very kind indeed, you might want to give Ricky Gervais credit for trying. But I don't think you'd conclude that he'd succeeded.

Ricky Gervais is familiar but compassionate in Derek

A bit like Bob Geldof, whatever you think of some of Ricky Gervais's outbursts, he's still one of the good guys - who seems to want help create a world where, as Derek remembered Joan telling him through his tears, "kindness is magic, more important than being good-looking or clever."

Derek, Channel 4

Ricky Gervais's latest vehicle will stir debate.

Ricky Gervais fans give Derek the thumbs up

Ricky Gervais' new series Derek has received positive feedback for its inaugural episode, despite fears that viewers might find it offensive or unfunny.

Review: Derek (Channel 4)

The good news: Ricky Gervais' Derek isn't the distasteful portrait of a mentally-disabled man many assumed it would be (based on the original sketch that featured a questionable version of the same character). The bad news: Derek was nevertheless a largely tedious half-hour that offered few laughs amidst an oppressively earnest atmosphere.

This touching, one-off comedy drama is written and directed by Ricky Gervais, who also takes the lead role as Derek, a vulnerable adult working in an old people's home. You might expect Gervais to run cynical riot in this setting but he's in surprisingly sensitive form. It's down to Karl Pilkington, Gervais's long-suffering puppet in Sky1's An Idiot Abroad, to nab the darkest lines as Derek's best friend and landlord, Dougie.

Ricky Gervais follows up Life's Too Short with a show about a simple, vulnerable man working in an old people's home. Brave, but this isn't the moment where Gervais is consumed by political incorrectness once and for all: Derek is nearly a brilliant reinvention.

You'd have to try hard to read Gervais's portrayal of slow, sweet Derek as mockery, and the sad ending is up there with David Brent's "Don't make me redundant" meltdown. Kerry Godliman shines in a supporting role as Hannah, the care worker who is Derek's best friend and is thwarted, selfless, burningly sad but endlessly compassionate - every moment she is on screen is sigh-inducing magic.

But Derek falters because Gervais, who writes and directs without Stephen Merchant, is too reliant on tropes from his previous work. The action is shot as a documentary about the characters, a device that doesn't add much and highlights the occasional, inappropriate similarity between Derek and Gervais's other creations. Casting Karl Pilkington as another of Derek's colleagues also breaks the spell, and sometimes the mix of slapstick and sensitive drama is uncomfortable.