Who Is David Brent?

David Brent is a fictional character from the BBC television comedy 'The Office'. He is a white-collar office middle-manager and one of the main characters.

David is the general manager of the Slough branch of the Wernham-Hogg paper merchants, and boss to most of the other characters in the series. He wants to be everyone's friend and mentor, and is always attempting to be the centre of attention. He is completely oblivious to how others see him, and does not take kindly to people telling him what they really think of him.

David has a need to be seen as good at everything, which includes playing music, writing songs and poetry and managing a team. He believes that he is a stand-up comedian, and is constantly doing tedious impersonations of characters from British comedy shows, such as Basil Fawlty from Fawlty Towers and The Two Ronnies. David tells everyone that he was in rock band called Foregone Conclusion and claimed that the Scottish rock band Texas once supported them at a gig.

David demonstrates an offensive attitude towards ethnic minorities, women and disabled people, despite his claims that he is a politically-correct man.

David is given a counterpart in series two. Neil Godwin becomes David's boss and is respected, unlike David. David is jealous of Neil and despises him. He spends quite a lot of the second series trying to get one-up on Neil.

Despite all this, David is largely depicted as a sad and lonely man, which prompts the audience to feel sorry for him at points, particularly when he gets made redundant in the second series and in the Christmas special when he struggles with life after losing his job.

David makes frequent visits back to the office and has a string of failed blind dates. However, there's a happy ending for David when one of his blind dates goes well, and he finally manages to make the staff laugh, something which he has failed to do for the whole series.

David Brent is portrayed by Ricky Gervais, who co-wrote and directed the programme.