The Oz Office with a female David Brent
LGBT comic favourite to land role
IT’S a promotion that would probably even leave The Office boss David Brent feeling lost for words.
Australia is to make a version of the show – with a woman in charge.
The noughties hit BBC comedy starring Ricky Gervais has been reinvented by several countries from America to India but always with a man in the big chair.
Now the latest offering, expected to be streamed on Amazon Prime Video, is breaking the mould.
Among the Aussie favourites tipped for the lead role is 60-yearold sketch comedy actress and LGBT activist Magda Szubanski, best known Down Under for hit sketch show Fast Forward and sitcom Kath and Kim. Wedding Crashers star Isla Fisher, married to Sacha Baron Cohen, is also in the running along with Aussie drama Wentworth’s Katrina Milosevic and Muriel’s
Wedding actress Rachel Griffiths. Dan Stalcup, host of The Goods: A Film Podcast who has explored the differences between the American and original versions of The Office reckons a female lead would work well.
He said: “The British Office reshaped television comedy. Now the Australian reboot is promising us a chance to see a familiar set-up with a new flavour.
“The key will be nailing the casting as well as finding a different comic voice. Having a woman as the boss is a chance to explore some interesting dynamics.”
Other countries to have their own versions of the Gervais classic include Canada, Chile, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Poland and Sweden. La Job, the Canadian version, is set in Montreal with its boss called David Gervais in homage to the original co-created by Ricky’s pal Stephen Merchant.
In an interview last year Stephen said it was “testament to Ricky that he inhabited David Brent so fully”.
He added: “That made the process of writing him easier because we could improvise with him in character.”
The show was based on a paper firm in a trading estate in Slough – with cringey boss Brent regularly spouting inadvertently inappropriate comments.
Merchant added: “Jimmy Carr, who’s from Slough, drove us around there and we looked at where Brent might have worked and lived and got a sense of him.” Reports say filming for the Aussie version is due to start this summer.