You aren’t alone if you could watch only some of The Call Centre, BBC3’s fly-on-the-wall series filmed at a Swansea cold-call factory, where bad banter met worse suits. The man in charge, Nev (that’s him in the brown suit with one of his acolytes) emerged instantly as a real-life David Brent, dispensing business park maxims and behaviour to make an HR department shudder.

Who needs stage presence when you can do pop-by-numbers?

Gervais claims the character in his controversial new sitcom isn't meant to be disabled - but how is he perceived?

"The night's most enduring band – with Le Bon in Union Jack jacket – enter after a brief, bracing deluge"

Kelner's view

Those who know him only as the ribald host of the Golden Globes in Hollywood will be unaware that Ricky Gervais was once Britain's most strikingly prescient socio-political satirist. Long before last year's outbreak of "mong" warfare on Twitter, Gervais produced an uncannily accurate predictive metaphor for the Tory attitude towards the disabled, on view this week as the Welfare Reform Bill wended its contentious way through the Lords.

The Prime Minister seems to be happy to pat the disabled on the head and then leave them behind

Chris Morris's savage satire of media types prompts the question: are these guys for real? Ed Caesar hits Shoreditch to find out

Stevenage Borough 0 - Rochdale 2

Actress Julie Fernandez was used to being patronised by David Brent in the name of comedy. But have new laws made a difference to her real life? By Katy Guest