David Brent is striking a very different note

RICKY Gervais has a pinpoint memory of the first gut-punching review of The Office.

“It was in the [Evening] Standard, the day after the first episode was shown, and it said, ‘Summer stinker: Unfunny. Boring. Gervais sometimes fluffs his lines’,” he recalls, flashing a smile.

Practically horizontal, feet resting on the desk in the lofty, unfussy office where he works — a gesture pleasingly reminiscent of his alter-ego David Brent — the slight is shrugged away today.