Just fourteen episodes set in Slough made The Office a global comedy export
When The Office first aired on BBC Two in July 2001, few people watched. Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant made only two short series and a Christmas special, yet the misadventures of a deluded Slough manager were eventually sold to broadcasters in more than 80 countries and inspired an American remake.
Gervais and Merchant created, wrote and directed the show together, and Gervais played its centre of gravity, David Brent. The setting is the Slough Trading Estate branch of Wernham Hogg, an invented paper merchant whose motto is the pun that life is stationery. Filmed as a mock documentary, it made its comedy out of awkwardness, vanity, frustration and the small absurdities of working life.
Brent believes he is a charming maverick and a gifted philosopher, musician and comedian. His staff see someone tactless and exhausting. His gaffes, casual prejudice and hunger for approval drive most episodes. Beside him sits Gareth Keenan, played by Mackenzie Crook, a humourless former Territorial Army man who takes his empty title of Team Leader very seriously and becomes the regular victim of office pranks.
The emotional thread belongs to Tim Canterbury, a sales rep played by Martin Freeman who at 30 still lives with his parents, and Dawn Tinsley, the receptionist played by Lucy Davis. Dawn is engaged to Lee, a surly warehouse worker, and gave up illustrating children's books to stay in the job. When Brent is sacked at the end of the second series, Tim turns down the chance to replace him and lets Gareth have it. The Christmas special finally resolves things: encouraged by Tim to chase her illustration ambitions, Dawn leaves Lee for him.
Low early ratings did not last as a verdict. Beyond BBC Worldwide channels, the series went to ABC1 in Australia, TVNZ in New Zealand and Star World across Asia, and American viewers found it on BBC America from 2001 to 2016 and on Adult Swim between 2009 and 2011. It is now counted among the finest television programmes of this century.
Source: The Office (British TV series)
