It’s just too late for David Brent to enter the battle for Christmas number one this year.

Don’t Cry, It’s Christmas, performed for the first time yesterday at the Colston Hall, could have been a contender. Written by Brent for Timmy, a boy he told us that he knew from an orphanage in Slough, it closed a gig that had sold out in minutes when it was announced last month.

“Santa is feeling kind, though he knows you will never see him; it’s not that he is invisible, it’s because you’re going blind.”

A typical song from Ricky Gervais’ fictional traveling cleaning products salesman, and perhaps it might be a chart-topper next year, a year which surely will see Gervais take this show to much bigger venues than the Colston Hall.

It could be the proximity of Bristol to Slough that saw Brent and Foregone Conclusion on the road for the first time outside London.

Slough even had a song dedicated to it, a riposte to the poetry of John Betjeman who famously hated the town.

Slough the song informed us that the station had recently had a new floor laid, while Life on the Road told of a not so glamorous existence for the former paper merchant: “I go to Gloucester, get a Costa; hard shoulder? I got a coaster.”

Fans of The Office were treated to a pitch perfect performance from Gervais. The knowing looks were there as were the cringe-worthy moments right from the start when somehow he had to explain why his lead guitarist was not a child molester.

There was even just enough of a pause in Free Love Freeway for The Office die-hards in the crowd to cut in at the exact moment that Tim does, and to provide Gareth’s falsetto harmonies if they really wanted. I was half-expecting the motivational speaker to call lunch at the end of the song.

Spaceman Came Down was also familiar from the sitcom, but the best songs were the new ones like Lady Gypsy, about Brent losing his virginity to a heather seller by a lake just south of Didcot; and Equality Street, where he sung in a DJ Derek-style patois over a reggae rhythm and was joined on stage by his support act, Doc Brown, playing a stereotypical angry rapper.

This was a special Christmas treat for fans of The Office. After a rapturous reception, including one overweight chap in a baseball cap who for no reason at all decided to run a few loops of the stalls, Gervais’ travelling salesman has an open invitation to head back up the M4 to Bristol anytime he wants.