The Office (British TV series)

David Brent is the general manager of the Slough branch of Wernham Hogg paper merchants. Insecure, and totally narcissistic, he believes he is a successful maverick in the business world and a Renaissance man, talented in philosophy, music and comedy. Although he thinks he is patient, funny and popular, others perceive him as annoying, rude and selfish. His immature behaviour comes across as he bumbles around the office – always hovering around the camera – telling unfunny jokes, performing hackneyed impressions, and generally getting into trouble by talking before thinking. Brent thinks he is a kind, politically correct man, but his preoccupation with this position, and the discrepancy between it and his often patronising (and at times offensive) jokes, gets him into trouble. His cluelessness regarding his awkwardness, his lack of empathy, his unquenchable thirst for gratification, and his ridiculous way of trying to save face are the driving comical forces of this show.

Tim Canterbury is a sales representative at Wernham Hogg. Unlike David, Tim is witty and considerate. His humour and kindness make him one of the most likeable employees in the office, but at 30 he still lives with his parents and works at a job he believes to be completely pointless. He maintains his sanity by pursuing an improbable romance with receptionist Dawn Tinsley and by playing practical jokes on Gareth. Although he wishes to leave Wernham Hogg to study psychology, his insecurity prevents him from taking any significant action. During Series One and Two, he also fails to further pursue a relationship with Dawn. Chosen as David's successor at the end of series 2, he declines and lets Gareth take the position, which, however, does not keep him from playing pranks on Gareth.

Gareth Keenan is Tim's selfish deskmate and enemy. Gareth is a humourless jobsworth with few good personality traits. He is obsessed with his military service in the Territorial Army and annoys Tim with his pretentious comments. He takes pride in being "Team Leader", not realising his title is mostly meaningless, and he imposes the little authority he has on his co-workers. He is stubborn and insensitive. Tim and Dawn repeatedly insinuate homosexuality through questioning him about his military experience using double entendres. Apparently proud of his close connections with David and glossing over David's poor treatment of him, he later – during the Christmas special – gets back at David by patronising and humiliating him in front of the cameras.

Dawn Tinsley is the company receptionist and Brent's dogsbody. She frequently has to put up with his attempts at humour and social interaction. Like her friend and co-worker Tim, she is aware of the sad state of her life – she has been in a long, rocky engagement with her fiancé Lee, a surly warehouse worker, and gave up illustrating children's books to pursue her current fruitless career. During the Christmas special, Dawn and Lee return from their illegally prolonged US vacation.

Jennifer Taylor-Clarke (Stirling Gallacher) was Brent's immediate superior in Series One. Nicknamed Camilla Parker Bowles by him, she is a serious-minded professional, and Brent's behaviour and comedy-driven style of management are shown to be puerile and ineffectual by contrast, with Jennifer repeatedly reprimanding David for inappropriate behaviour. At the end of Series One she is made a partner in the firm, with Neil Godwin becoming David's immediate superior in series 2.

Ricky Howard (Oliver Chris) was introduced as Brent's new temp in the pilot, and a recent graduate. He was prominently featured in episode three, where he and Tim form a team for trivia night. The two end up winning, successfully answering a tie-breaker question on Shakespeare against Finch. His past experiences at game shows, including winning Blockbusters, causes Finch to wind him up after beating him and Tim at "Throwing" claiming "Screw Blockbusters, Screw Bob Holness and screw your Gold Run!".

Chris Finch ("Finchy") (Ralph Ineson) is a "bloody good" outside sales representative. He is the only character in the series who is genuinely and deliberately narcissistic. He is brashly confident, rasping-voiced with a natural flair for bullying others with swift, humiliating putdowns, Brent being his usual target. He likes to dominate conversations and is successful with women, but shows a humourless violent attitude when he loses the staff quiz in Series One. David describes him as his "best friend" but actually acts more like a lackey, laughing at his jokes and attempting to impress him to feel popular only to be repaid with verbal abuse. Finch is such a bad loser at the quiz, he exclaims he and Brent can beat the team who beat them at many other things, so decides he can beat them at "Throwing", and if he throws anything they choose over the building, they will win the quiz and the champagne instead (which they eventually do, with Tim's shoe being the nominated object). In the Christmas Special, David finally stands up to Chris.

Neil Godwin (Patrick Baladi) is Brent's counterpart at the Swindon branch and eventually his immediate superior. He is young, charming, professional and energetic, a more competent manager than Brent, and has a better relationship with staff. Brent is hugely resentful and jealous of him, and makes occasional, often childish attempts to either undermine or rival him. He grows increasingly exasperated with Brent's incompetence, poor judgement and failure to do his job properly and is therefore instrumental in David's redundancy.

Rachel (Stacey Roca) is a bubbly and attractive co-worker who starts a relationship with Tim. After a deluded Gareth reveals his plans to seduce her, Tim is shocked when she begins to pressure him to make a greater commitment. He realises that his ongoing love for Dawn is far greater than his feelings for Rachel and breaks off the relationship.

Anne (Elizabeth Berrington): Only appearing in the Christmas special, she is Tim's pregnant desk mate. She annoys him as she speaks continuously about herself and other topics no one else is interested in. She coldly tells David that no one is interested in his invitation to go out for a drink, causing discomfort amongst her co-workers. However, an encounter with Glynn at the office party causes her to run out of the office in tears.

Several other recurring characters, although not central to the episodes, play an important role in the series. These include:

• Keith Bishop (Ewen MacIntosh): Keith works in the accounts department. Heavy set, slow-talking and apparently emotionless, he is a man of few words. When he does speak, his comments can be eloquent and sometimes disturbing.
• Lee (Joel Beckett): Dawn's fiancé who works in the company's warehouse. She met him in school and they have been together ever since. Lee is humourless, dull, and controlling. He often undermines and embarrasses Dawn, and is dismissive of her ideas of being an illustrator. His idea of a romantic proposal was a four-word notice in the newspaper — "Lee love Dawn. Marriage?". It is clear from an early stage that she stays with him out of a fear of loneliness rather than real love. Lee has a somewhat violent temper, which is shown when he holds Tim against a wall, simply for starting to dance with Dawn.
• Glynn aka Taffy (David Schaal): The misogynistic, sexist warehouse manager at the company and Lee's supervisor, who is seen as being very slack and has little respect for anyone who works outside the warehouse, particularly management.
• Malcolm (Robin Hooper): An older staff member, he is naturally most worried about the prospect of redundancies and therefore often challenges Brent's handling of the situation, criticising his relaxed attitude, lack of management ability and his unnecessary hiring of a personal secretary. Giving him the nickname Kojak, Brent openly dislikes Malcolm, sneering at his criticisms and openly lying about "faking" the high blood pressure that cost him a promotion and saved the Slough office from closure. He does not appear in Series Two, having presumably been made redundant.
• Donna (Sally Bretton): Introduced in series 1, episode 2 as the daughter of Brent's friends Ron and Elaine, who has come to work at the office. She makes a quick impact in the office, starting a relationship with Ricky, but fails to reciprocate Keenan's romantic feelings towards her.
• Karen Roper (Nicola Cotter): Brent's personal secretary, hired because he insists that he needs an assistant. Several of the staff are apprehensive about Brent hiring new and unnecessary personnel while the branch is facing downsizing and redundancies. She is not seen in Series Two due to David proclaiming she was 'Last in, first out'.
• Trudy (Rachel Isaac): Welsh Trudy is first introduced in Series Two as one of several of the new intake from the Swindon branch. Almost immediately, she establishes herself as something of a good-time girl, blending in well with the rest of the staff and enjoying a booze-fuelled birthday celebration in her honour at the office. Her casual, sexually charged nature does not go unnoticed by the male members of staff, with David often trying to take advantage of this only to be ignored.
• Oliver (Howard Saddler): Oliver is good-natured and tolerant, which is lucky for him as he is the only black person working in the office. Because of this he becomes the target for most of David's well-meaning but hideously misguided attempts to show what a politically correct and racially tolerant man he is.
• Brenda (Julie Fernandez): Brenda naturally brings out the worst in Brent; she is not impressed by his patronising behaviour. She highlights the gap between Brent's vision of himself as a modern enlightened man and the reality of his ignorance and thoughtlessness. She uses a wheelchair, which results in her being stranded on a stairwell during a fire drill when David and Gareth decide they cannot be bothered to carry her all the way down.
• Rowan (Vincent Franklin): A training facilitator who is progressively frustrated by Brent's attempts to undermine and take control of a team training session, often forcing it to veer off track.
• Simon (Matthew Holness): Working in IT, he visits the office to install firewall software on the computers while discussing his theories with Keenan about Bruce Lee faking his own death so that he could go undercover and fight the Triads. An arrogant show-off and boaster, he claims to be the record holder of the fastest lap down at 'SuperKarts', something which he claims experts have said would make him the best Formula 1 racer in the country.
• Ray (Tom Goodman-Hill) and Jude (Jennifer Hennessy): The only two recurring characters in Series Two who do not work for Wernham Hogg. Instead, they work for a consultancy firm that organises business management seminars. They approach Brent about being a guest speaker at one of the seminars but are totally unimpressed with his unorthodox presentation on motivational techniques.
• Helena (Olivia Colman): A reporter for the internal paper merchant newspaper "Inside Paper" who finds interviewing Brent quite difficult because he attempts to dictate what she should write in her article.
• Carol (Sandy Hendrickse): Brent's blind date with whom he hits it off and who seems to like him.
• Oggy aka 'The Ogg Monster' (Stephen Merchant): One of Gareth's best friends. His real name is Nathan.

• Ricky Gervais as David Brent
• Martin Freeman as Tim Canterbury
• Mackenzie Crook as Gareth Keenan
• Lucy Davis as Dawn Tinsley
• Stirling Gallacher as Jennifer Taylor-Clarke
• Ralph Ineson as Chris Finch
• Patrick Baladi as Neil Godwin
• Stacey Roca as Rachel
• Elizabeth Berrington as Anne

In 2004, Microsoft UK commissioned two 20-minute corporate videos, entitled "The Office Values" and "Realising Potential", featuring David Brent being interviewed by Jeff Merchant (played by Stephen Merchant), a Microsoft employee who becomes increasingly exasperated by Brent's antics. Brent is obviously resentful of the company's success. He believes he has what it takes to become the next managing director of Microsoft and continually drops hints to that effect. While not on general release, the videos emerged on the Internet in 2006. The clips also appeared on certain peer-to-peer networks. Microsoft was unhappy with the leak, stating that the videos "were never intended to be viewed by the public".[18]

Additionally, a Comic Relief charity short was made in 2013 entitled "The Office Revisited"

In 2013 Gervais developed a series of videos, and released them on his YouTube channel entitled "Learn Guitar with David Brent". Within three months, the series had collected over 2 million views.[19]

The Brent character also featured in the 2016 film David Brent: Life on the Road, this time with the contributions of Gervais but not Merchant.