Oliver Reeder

Oliver Reeder is a special adviser scrambling up the greasy pole of a government department nobody quite respects. Young, quick-witted and painfully eager to be taken seriously, he mixes genuine policy brains with a hunger for status that keeps outrunning his judgment. He wants influence, and he wants it noticed.

Chris Addison plays him as a man perpetually one step behind his own ambition, all clever rejoinders and flop sweat, which makes him the perfect target for Malcolm Tucker's abuse and the perfect vehicle for the show's joke that competence and self-preservation rarely coincide in government.