I am a fan of Ricky Gervais, but I have to say his portrayal of the Derek character is awful.
Ruins the whole programme for me. It's way OTT, cheesy, unbelievable and caricature-ish. It's terrible acting and totally ridiculous.
Massive fan of The Office and Extras and I like nearly everything he does, but his take on someone with learning difficulties is embarrassingly unconvincing and plain dreadful. It's just an awful portrayal of a character. It's a village hall am-dram farce type performance from him. Just dreadful acting.
His take on the character of Derek spoils the whole show for me, which is a shame.