LOOKING BACK
It’s two decades since David Brent was unleashed by Ricky Gervais...
TWENTY years ago, The Office was beamed into our living rooms and changed our lives. Like Fawlty Towers and Blackadder, it’s a high watermark comedy, giving us catchphrases to use and a dance to imitate.
Its fly-on-the-wall documentary style, and the cringe comedy it perfected, has influenced the likes of Fleabag, The Inbetweeners and The Thick of It.
Not bad for a show which, from its first episode in July 2001, until creators Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant walked away in 2003, ran for only two six-episode series and a double-episode Christmas special.
Set in the offices of Slough paper company Wernahm-hogg it featured the working lives of David Brent (Gervais) who desperately wanted to be a cool boss, his toady underling Gareth (Mackenzie Crook) and the studenty Tim (Martin Freeman), who is desperate to leave but has feelings for receptionist Dawn (Lucy Davis).
Such was the success of The Office it spawned an American version and was sold to 170 territories in 88 nations, as well as being remade in eight countries including France as Le Bureau.
Here, we look back on 20 years of The Office with 20 facts.
1
The Cat Stevens song Sitting was originally considered for the theme music. Instead, a version of Handbags and Gladrags, covered in 1969 by Rod Stewart and originally released by Chris Farlowe in 1967, was sung by Fin Muir (and not Kelly Jones from the Stereophonics, who also covered the song). 2
Crossbow House in Slough, which is used in the opening credits, was demolished in 2013, while Slough Bus Station, which also features in the title sequence, was replaced in 2011. 3 The Office was a real disused office where the clerical team for Teddington Film Studios worked and where the programme was filmed.
4
Brent was originally a character called Seedy Boss, invented by Gervais when he worked at Xfm with Stephen Merchant in the late 90s. Merchant went on to work at the BBC and did a course for trainee TV producers. A practical element of the course was to produce a piece of work from a one-day video shoot. So the pair got together to write and film a short documentary about the delusional and inadequate boss, who they then christened David Brent.
5
Initially, BBC focus groups thought it was a real show about real people who didn’t believe the ground-breaking style was fictional. Despite the feedback being negative, Gervais maintains the shoestring budget allowed the show to carry on. He said: “After the focus group, they could have pulled it because we got the joint-lowest score ever of any focus group, along with women’s bowls.” Merchant admitted that
it was looking
“pretty bad” for the show and he was amazed that The Office made it to air.
6
Gervais and Merchant had plans to tour the country and find “real people” to play the parts in order to add authenticity to the documentary feel. “That was until we realised real people are terrible actors,” said Merchant. “That’s why they’re not actors.”
7
In the Charity episode of The Office, Brent’s iconic awkward dance was an unscripted, out-of-body experience from Gervais, which was created in the moment.
It turns out even he can’t quite believe the moves himself, and said: “It’s good, I don’t even think it’s me! Do you know what I mean? I look like an orangutan!’ I don’t know how I did it! I don’t know how I threw those shapes. I remember going mental. Also I’m blessed with those little short legs, so the kick is spectacular, going straight out like that.”
8
Ewen Macintosh played Scotch egg-munching accountant Keith Bishop, who didn’t have the role at first but was hired as one of the workers in the office who may or may appears every now and then not be given a line to say. Gervais looking blankly at the camera is loved Macintosh’s dead-eyed stare Stephen Merchant’s dad, Ron. and the role was made bigger until he The record number of takes for
11 got a scene himself with Tim one scene is 74. It’s the one (Freeman) and a Scotch Egg, which where Brent gives Tim an appraisal. has become one of the best loved The first scene ever written was
12 parts of the show. Freeman, who went Brent’s excruciating interview on to have huge fame in The Hobbit, with Karen Roper for the job of PA, in admitted he couldn’t do the scene for episode five. laughing. “I actually thought I 13
Martin Freeman originally wouldn’t be able to do it,” he said.
auditioned for Gareth but was 9
Texas were huge in 2001 and got a asked by Gervais to then read for Tim. namecheck, with Brent claiming
14
Ralph Ineson, who plays Finchy, his group Foregone Conclusion had Brent’s nasty best friend, was been supported by a “little known worried the role could ruin his career. band called Texas”. He also didn’t He said: “After filming it, I kept saying think Sharleen would do well in the ‘Why did I do it?’ I was worried how office, saying:. “I’m sure Texas people would react to
12 couldn’t run and manage his ways.” a successful paper merchants...i could do what they do, and I think they knew it back then. Probably what spurred them on.” 10 The caretaker 15
The Office was the first British comedy in 25 years to be nominated for a Golden Globe, and the first ever to win one. Gervais won Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series: Musical or Comedy. He was stopped at customs when they spotted the gong in his luggage on the way back to the UK.
16
When asked about their favourite scene from the show, Gervais and Merchant agreed, saying: “We both like the bit where Tim takes his microphone off at the end of series two.” The scene uses a fake documentary style to tell the story.
17
Prankster Gervais enjoyed making actors laugh and fluff their lines. Especially Freeman, who said in one scene where Brent is introducing his character: “‘Tim... Tim Canterbury... Archbishop of Canterthat bury... Bishop Muzorewa’ – a name I have not heard since about 1980.” 18
Gareth is based on a kid Gervais went to school with. He said: “He’s the one who put a crab in a pint of beer on holiday, because I told him, as a joke, ‘When a crab is drunk, it walks forwards.’”
19
Gervais claimed Tim is a bit of Norm from Cheers, Chandler from Friends and Oliver Hardy. He said: “Stan and Ollie feature in all my work really. The blind leading the blind. Both thinking they’re with an idiot. Both right. Both struggling. And both needing each other to survive.” 20
The show’s co-creator only realised how popular it had become when he spoke to a rough sleeper who said he’d stolen “loads of your DVDS”. After the homeless man had praised the show, Gervais said: “I don’t know where the homeless watch it – through Dixons’ (now Currys) window or something? But he went, ‘Ah man, I’ve just been to HMV, I just nicked loads of your DVDS!’”
Gold is re-running all episodes of The Office from tonight at 10pm.