Abigoliah: Hello there. This is All British Comedy Explained, the podcast where I finally learn about all British comedy shows I’ve been missing out on all these years. I’m Abigoliah, and my guide through the comedy labyrinth is Tom Salinsky.
Tom: Hello there. Nice to be back.
Abigoliah: Good to be back. How are you, Tom?
Tom: Yes, I’m okay. We’ve got a really interesting show today, which gave birth to something which has become an international phenomenon. And it’s not often, when we’re talking about obscure British comedy shows, that I get to use language like that.
Abigoliah: So tell me. Tell me what we’re doing today.
Tom: Well, we’re going to do The Office.
Abigoliah: I am looking forward to it. Now, here’s my deal. I was going to do my adjacent research.
Tom: Oh, yes.
Abigoliah: But then I started reading A Court of Thorns and Roses, and that kept me very busy, and I had no time.
Tom: Which is what, exactly?
Abigoliah: Oh, it’s a fantasy novel.
Tom: Is it romantasy? Is that what it’s called?
Abigoliah: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So apparently the first one – because I was like, I’ve started hearing about it all the time – the first one came out in 2016. It wasn’t a huge hit. It was sold as, like, young adult. And there’s like five of them. And then apparently the second one gets very sexy, so I did go to the bookshop to buy that. But my point is about The Office is I was going to rewatch some of the American Office and maybe watch a Ricky Gervais comedy special just so I could be mad.
But full disclosure: I have seen some of the American Office. I haven’t watched a lot of it. It came out in 2005. This is when I was living in New York. I didn’t have a TV when I first lived in New York, and as I look back on my New York days, I just didn’t watch a lot of TV because I was, like, out in New York. So, like, I know The Office and I know the world. But as we go through this, I know John Krasinski is in it. I don’t know the name of his character. You know what I mean? Like, I know there’s a love interest story. I know, but yeah. So this will be interesting.
Tom: Do you think the American Office reshaped American sitcoms, or were you watching so little TV around that time you can’t answer that question with any confidence?
Abigoliah: I mean, I would definitely say yes, because then after that, things like The Office came out. Parks and Rec comes to mind, which is, like, a different feeling from The Office, but that whole kind of mockumentary type thing started to happen. So yeah, I would say it reshaped sitcoms for sure. Also – and you would know this – but is that when the “in front of a live studio audience” started to go away.
Tom: We’re going to talk about that. Yeah, absolutely. I think in both cases. So I think it was probably – again, I haven’t done the research into American shows because that’s not my purview – but yeah, definitely that was a trend that was already happening.
And so then you get shows like, as you said, Parks and Rec from the same producer, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, these very, very fast-paced shows with lots and lots of gags. And I think that is also picking up on something that’s happening in animation with The Simpsons and things like that. Because if you think back to those old limited animation shows from Hanna-Barbera in the 60s and 70s – The Flintstones, The Jetsons and so on – they had a laugh track.
Abigoliah: They did, didn’t they?
Tom: Now, I don’t think they were shown to a studio audience. I think that was a literal laugh track – as in an existing recording of audience laughter that was played in at appropriate moments. But it was just thought that if you were putting something funny on TV, it had to have a laugh track.
Abigoliah: Interesting.
Tom: But obviously animated characters can’t react to the audience, which is one of the reasons for having a laugh track.
Abigoliah: You want to hear some inside information about a current TV show?
Tom: Sure. Do we have to cut this out, or is it…?
Abigoliah: No, no, no. I’ve heard Richard Osman also confirm this. So Pointless, specifically Celebrity Pointless, which I was on –
Tom: And won!
Abigoliah: And won. During Covid, they stopped filming in front of an audience – they used to. And then after Covid, they were like, “This is actually easier, and we can do way more episodes in a day.” So they’ve stopped filming in front of an audience.
So when I went to watch my episode, they put in laugh tracks. Not a lot, not a lot. And applause. But none of that is real. Like, none of it. Which was really weird to, like, see. Just a little bit of a laugh track, but not loads. So I thought I was saying something funny, but then they didn’t decide to put the laugh track there, and I was like, guys, if we’re gonna commit, commit.
Tom: All right. Well, we will come back to this because I think it’s a really interesting point, but I’m going to take you back even further. I’m going to take you back to 2001. This is the year that Wikipedia launched.
Abigoliah: Big year.
Tom: The first Harry Potter film and the first Lord of the Rings film are both in cinemas.
Abigoliah: And let me tell you, The Lord of the Rings freaking holds up.
Tom: Yes. See my podcast Best Pick for more about that.
Abigoliah: Oh my God.
Tom: Apple launches iTunes.
Abigoliah: Oh wow.
Tom: But you can’t buy music there, so it’s just a place that you use to rip music from a CD, and you use iTunes software to transfer the music to your iPod. Okay, that’s its only function. And Tony Blair wins a second term as UK Prime Minister, and George Bush is sworn in as US President.
Abigoliah: Well, some good things happened that year.
Tom: Yeah, the dream team. But we’re going to talk about Ricky Gervais. So a few years before this, he is abandoning his attempt at rock stardom.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: He was in a New Romantic pop duo called Seona Dancing.
Abigoliah: I never knew he tried. Wait, like a legitimate rock star? Not a comedy – he tried? He – Ricky freaking Gervais tried to be a rock star?
Tom: I’ll put a clip in here.
Abigoliah: Yikey Mikeys!
Tom: And he’s just winding up a job as events manager at the University of London Union. He’s got a job at radio station XFM, which he isn’t really interested in doing. So his plan is to tell them that this job is much more hard work than he expected, and he needs an assistant, and then find an assistant who will effectively do the work for him.
Abigoliah: This sounds like the Ricky Gervais I have heard tell of.
Tom: And the man he selected was called Stephen Merchant.
Abigoliah: Now, whatever happened to that guy?
Tom: Indeed. So with Merchant there to help him, he’s freed to do things like send material to a late-night Channel 4 satirical programme called The 11 O’Clock Show, which ran from 1998.
Now, this is a bit of an oddity because I remember this going out, and it was another attempt to do something like Saturday Live or Saturday Night Live or one of those American talk shows, but nobody had a good word to say about it. Everybody thought it was dreadful, and yet it gave early outings for a lot of future comedy stars like Sacha Baron Cohen as Ali G, Will Smith – who’s currently running Slow Horses for Apple –
Abigoliah: That is not the “get jiggy with it” –
Tom: Indeed. No, that is the other Will Smith. The other Will Smith, as you probably know – you might even have gigged with him – will frequently open his set with jokes about the fact that he’s not that Will Smith.
Yeah. So early outings for people like Jimmy Carr, Mackenzie Crook – who we will meet shortly – and, of course, Ricky Gervais.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: So while he’s doing that, Stephen Merchant isn’t doing much work for XFM either. He’s off on a BBC producer training course.
Abigoliah: Oh, cool.
Tom: And he needs to make a short film in order to graduate. Now, what’s asked for is a documentary, but what he decides to do is call up his old friend Ricky Gervais, and they spend a day shooting about ten minutes – largely improvised – of Seedy Boss, which was a character that Ricky Gervais had developed basically to amuse his colleagues at XFM.
So one of the things that they’re playing around with in just this short film – largely made for their own amusement, but also to get Stephen Merchant through this course – they’re reacting against the rise of the so-called docusoaps. So these were all over British television in the late 90s.
Abigoliah: Explain this to me.
Tom: So it’s filmed like a documentary, but it has the feeling of a soap opera.
Abigoliah: So is it an actual documentary?
Tom: Yes.
Abigoliah: So this to me sounds like those Netflix documentaries now that I can really get sucked into, or, you know, like about the girl who went missing on a cruise ship – by the way, that one’s awful. It has no resolution. Don’t watch that. Or –
Tom: These are more like slice-of-life stuff. So they’d go to a place and find characters and film there. So there was one called Vets in Practice, which followed trainee vets in Bristol, or one called Airport, which focused on life at Heathrow.
Abigoliah: Oh, this sounds quite wholesome.
Tom: Yeah, it is.
Abigoliah: Okay, see, I’m thinking, like… gritty.
Tom: No, no, no. This isn’t sensational. But I think what Gervais and Merchant were reacting against is: this is just dull. This is just pap. This is just filler. You can go to an airport and film there and chat to people and generate hours of television material, and it’s all a bit kind of pointless and stupid.
Abigoliah: It almost sounds like the production companies wanted to do it because it was cheap and easy.
Tom: You never know.
So when Seedy Boss was edited, Merchant sensed there might be more material where that had come from, and this tape started circulating around the BBC. So first of all, it found its way to a very ambitious young producer named Ash Atalla. He showed it to his more experienced colleague, Anil Gupta.
Abigoliah: Are they still at the BBC? Because this wasn’t that long ago.
Tom: Yeah. Ash is definitely still making shows, I think.
Abigoliah: Huge fan of your work. Ash would love to work with you one day.
Tom: And then he got it to Jon Plowman. Now, Jon Plowman is this kind of visionary BBC producer. He’s produced any number of comedy shows – Absolutely Fabulous, dozens of others. And with his usual perspicacity, he turned it down flat.
Abigoliah: Oh, really?
Tom: He did not get it at all.
Abigoliah: He didn’t get it.
Tom: But Anil Gupta had recently had a very big success with a show called Goodness Gracious Me, which I’m sure we’ll get to if time allows. And he persuaded his boss to take a second look, and eventually they got the go-ahead to make a pilot.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: And then Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant dropped a bombshell. They wanted to direct it.
Abigoliah: And they hadn’t told anyone that.
Tom: Not until this point.
Abigoliah: Okay. And was it “we’ll direct it or we’ll walk”?
Tom: Kind of. Now, Jon Plowman hadn’t been keen on Ricky Gervais starring in it, let alone these two untried young men.
Abigoliah: Wait, so they didn’t expect Ricky Gervais to even play David Brent?
Tom: Jon Plowman was arguing that they should get a more experienced comedy actor instead of Ricky Gervais.
Abigoliah: Okay. I really haven’t seen much of this at all. I’ve only ever seen clips of the British Office, but – how… can you imagine anyone else playing it?
Tom: It’s bonkers.
Abigoliah: Do you know who they might have wanted?
Tom: I don’t think it got that far.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: So Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant dug their heels in so much, and eventually the project looked like it was going to die, and Anil Gupta stepped in and he said, “What if I direct it?”
So that satisfied the BBC because here was someone with a proven track record, and it mollified Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant because at least the person who had been fighting for the project was going to hold the reins.
Abigoliah: Yeah, they didn’t want it taken over and turned into something else.
Tom: That’s right.
And Gupta, I think his instincts were still a bit more towards traditional story structures and sitcom tropes, whereas what was really exciting Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant was seeing if they could mine comedy out of the genuine tedium of office life. And fortunately, when it got to the controller of BBC Two, Jane Root, she loved the pilot. Oh, good. Her only note was: get rid of the voiceover.
Abigoliah: Oh, there was a voiceover?
Tom: On the original pilot, there’s one of those sort of bland voiceovers. The kind of thing that’s… Have you ever seen W1A?
Abigoliah: No.
Tom: Or Twenty Twelve?
Abigoliah: No.
Tom: We’ll get to those at some point, but they have that dry voiceover that just sort of sets up each scene and explains who’s who and so on. And she just said, “Get rid of that. You don’t need it.”
But this decision took a long time. The wheels of BBC bureaucracy ground quite slowly. During that time, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant just carried on writing. So when the word came that they were getting a series, they had six complete scripts ready to go.
Abigoliah: Which is all you need in the UK.
Tom: That’s right. You have your six scripts ready before you start shooting.
Abigoliah: I will say they sound like a freaking awesome group. One: they stuck to their guns about what they wanted and would not relent because they had a vision. And then when the moment arrived, they were ready.
And as a professional comedian, I’ve known many professional comedians – so many times the moment arrives and you’re not ready. So I think these are smart cookies.
Tom: So a lot of the actors had already been hired for the pilot, and they were able to get many of them back. So Martin Freeman, who went on to be a huge star. Lucy Davis. Mackenzie Crook, who we just talked about –
Abigoliah: He’s the guy who was in Pirates of the Caribbean.
Tom: That’s right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this was a big launching pad for a lot of quite-now famous names. And so it went out on BBC Two to… meh.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: Initial response was kind of lukewarm.
Abigoliah: Which happened with Parks and Rec as well. Yes. Fun fact.
Tom: Yeah. And weren’t those first six episodes – wasn’t that supposed to be a longer season? But there was a writers’ strike and they were able to go back and retool.
Abigoliah: I think so. I can’t quite remember, but it almost got canned. And then at the last minute it got saved. But they started to rework it. And the biggest difference – if you’re someone who was like, “Oh, I’m not watching Parks and Rec because I watched The Office” – so Michael Scott is, like, inept at his job, whereas Amy Poehler’s character is actually really good at her job.
Tom: Leslie Knope.
Abigoliah: Leslie Knope is excellent at her job and passionate about her job, but she is, like, an inept human.
Tom: Yes.
Abigoliah: Some would say neurodivergent-coded.
Tom: Yes. So the initial response was lukewarm. Ratings were low, audience appreciation scores were poor, and it got mixed reviews in the press. But gradually people began to catch on that something interesting was happening.
When it came back for its second series, it regularly got four million viewers on BBC Two, which often made it the best-performing show on the channel. And the final two specials, which went out on BBC One over Christmas 2003, got double that, and it won awards. It won three British Comedy Awards, a clutch of BAFTAs, two Emmys and two Golden Globes. This is the British show. It was the first British comedy ever to win a Golden Globe.
Abigoliah: I think I’ve heard Stephen Merchant talk about that: how they showed up and everyone’s so Hollywood, and they’re just like – Emmys and the Golden Globes – on, like, a British budget with, like, normal suits. That is the nicest they can get, and normal teeth and normal skin. They haven’t been pulled back and refurbished like everyone around them. Yeah, that’d be wild, man.
Tom: So this is quite serialised. It is kind of an ongoing story. So: the 14 episodes in total – two series of six half-hours, and then two 45-minute Christmas specials. But I just think we should watch the first two and see how the story begins.
Abigoliah: Okay. Yeah, that works for me.
Tom: What are you expecting?
Abigoliah: I’m expecting Ricky Gervais’ character – who is David Brent, right? Correct. Is David Brent. I expect him to be really cringey. And I’m not necessarily saying in an unfunny way – just really cringey. And I’m expecting the humour to be very dry.
Tom: All right, let’s go watch The Office.
Abigoliah: Let’s go watch The Office.
Tom: All right. Abigoliah, what did you make of The Office from 2001? The original. The original Office. The OG.
Abigoliah: I really enjoyed it. I was right – it made me feel uncomfortable.
Tom: It’s so cringe, isn’t it?
Abigoliah: It’s very cringe.
Tom: For some people, that’s incredibly off-putting. So again, this was a little bit of a fifty-fifty one for me. I didn’t know which way you were going to jump.
Abigoliah: Well, I think I told you – I don’t know if it made the edit – but my sister, when the American Office came out, my little sister went and checked out the British Office and she couldn’t handle it. She was like, “It’s way too uncomfortable.”
I totally understand why, when it came out, no one knew what to make of it at first. I don’t know if I said this upstairs, but I’m gonna guess the response very much was similar to, like, Spinal Tap, where everyone was like, “Is this real? Is this not real?”
Tom: Oh, definitely. There were definitely a few people who watched it, or were channel-hopping and came across it in the middle, and couldn’t understand why this dreadful man had been allowed on television, and why a documentary crew is following him around.
Abigoliah: Exactly.
Tom: Yeah, it’s incredibly convincing. And that’s the tightrope they’re walking, right? It has to be funny enough that it will make you laugh consistently, and never too funny where you start thinking, “Oh, that kind of… that’s destroyed the world. That’s destroyed the reality.” And it’s a very, very small target.
Abigoliah: I mean, you know – I said I like it when he looks at the camera every now and then, but he doesn’t, in character – like, talking about not making it too obvious – he doesn’t, like, say something and then go, like… It’s not a wink. It’s like –
Tom: I’m hoping we’re going to be able to talk to some people who are actually on the show, but my understanding is that a lot of that stuff was very, very carefully choreographed and rehearsed.
But I also understand that it was Ricky Gervais in particular – also Stephen Merchant – but Ricky Gervais, who was very strict about: do it on this line, don’t do it on this line, do it this way, don’t do it that way. And that same Ricky Gervais who was constantly improvising, putting other people off, cracking up in the middle of takes and ruining them, and so on.
Abigoliah: Well, that was my question, because I know when people talk about the British Office – the original – how great the writing is and what a genius Gervais and Merchant are. And as I was watching it, if you had told me the whole thing was improvised, I’d believe it.
Tom: And my understanding is that Ricky Gervais was allowed to improvise, and with other people it was not banned, but it wasn’t encouraged to do anything like the same degree.
Abigoliah: Okay, interesting.
So a couple of things. You said you’ve worked in an office. Now, another iconic piece of – not literature – piece of art –
Tom: Content.
Abigoliah: Content. We won’t call it content, by the way. Follow us on TikTok or Instagram – that’s content. Culture is Office Space.
Tom: Yes.
Abigoliah: Is there something about actually working in an office – and the ownership of a stapler? I’m like, what’s with the stapler?
Tom: I’m pretty sure that is just coincidence. I think they’re both 2001, so neither one of them could have influenced the other.
Abigoliah: Oh, you’re saying it also came out in 2001?
Tom: Yeah, I think so. I’ve got a little kind of memory in the back of my mind saying that’s also 2001. Could have been earlier.
Abigoliah: Yeah. Yeah. I’m trying to think, in my childhood, when I found it. But yeah – I was like, what’s with… I mean, I’m not suggesting that The Office stole from Office Space, or maybe paid homage, if anything, but in my head I was like: are staplers, like, a thing? Like, did you have a stapler-gate at your office?
Tom: I mean, certainly. I mean, that’s a thing that you would have to go and either get from the stationery office… I think staples are – I’m also super overthinking this now – but I think a stapler is one of those things that come in cheap, nasty, hard-to-use versions, and expensive executive heavy-duty versions. And so I can understand why a stapler might be prized.
Abigoliah: Okay, I get that. I get that.
By the way, the first episode is so… all of the comedy is so small and it’s played so straight that when they pulled out the –
Tom: The jelly.
Abigoliah: Stapler in the jelly mould, that just felt so left field and so funny. And they still keep it, like, you know, it’s not like, “Whoa, this is crazy.”
Tom: And you cut to Martin Freeman munching – munching – on raw jelly, going, “How’d you know it was me?”
Abigoliah: It’s so good.
I also – I don’t know why – but in my head, I thought Martin Freeman’s character was going to be a little bit more, like, put-upon and a little bit like, “Oh, shucks,” and, like, just a really good guy who has to deal with all these idiots. I didn’t realise he was going to be so, like, biting. Like, he hits back. He’s a bit of an arsehole as well.
You root for him, but – like when he’s attacking… he makes the wall between them. Yeah. Yeah. I was surprised his character was – his cantankerous… is that the right word?
Tom: Spiky.
Abigoliah: Yeah. Spiky.
Tom: And with Gareth – I mean, they’d written in his backstory. It’s in the text that he’s Territorial Army. So they had in mind, I think, someone a bit more physically imposing. But when Mackenzie Crook showed up to the audition, the idea of this much more kind of scrawny guy claiming to have this Territorial Army experience, and talking about kung fu movies and how to kill somebody with a knife and so on – it just seemed even more ridiculous.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: And again, he plays it with such commitment.
That little running joke – which you’ve just seen the beginning of – every time he says he’s “assistant regional manager”, David Brent corrects him to “assistant to the regional manager”. That kind of pettiness is so precise, so well observed.
Abigoliah: Okay. Hot take. And I gotta think they did not do this – and maybe I’m the only person who felt this – but when David Brent is doing his one-on-one, specifically with the male colleagues, and it’s uncomfortable – especially when he’s talking to the intern – I think it looks like David Brent wants to fuck all the male colleagues. Like, as far as inappropriate officing, I feel like he’s going to commit sexual misconduct with the men. And the women are completely safe around him.
Tom: Well, he desperately wants to be loved. He desperately wants the approval. And I think he does particularly want the approval of other men. Yeah – he wants to be a man’s man. He wants to be a lad. He isn’t really interested in sex or romance.
Abigoliah: Which just makes him look so gay. It makes him look like a closeted gay man.
Tom: Yeah.
Abigoliah: Yeah. I mean, you do see heart in David Brent from the very beginning. Like, the fact that he just refuses to fire everyone. And also his – you know, how he’s like, “I’m a feminist,” and you can’t say the derogatory word for a Pakistani person –
Tom: Yes.
Abigoliah: However, like, can’t tell the difference between different Pakistani people. Like, he’s so wrong, but trying to be so right.
I remember when he started doing stand-up and started to spout certain views that maybe this podcast specifically does not endorse. I remember once seeing it go around the internet, that it was like, “Ricky Gervais just made David Brent his actual personality.” And I wonder if he’s really like – I mean, I guess he is? I don’t know. Is he really like that?
Tom: Because, I mean, he didn’t train as an actor. So this was a character he created to be amusing. And it’s abundantly clear – especially when you listen to Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant being interviewed – that the point of the show is to belittle David Brent and to make him seem pathetic. Which he’s actually called several times at the end of this second episode.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: And they don’t admire him in any way. But it’s also, I think, pretty true that the line – the thickness of skin – between David Brent and Ricky Gervais is paper-thin.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: And it’s like: David Brent is Ricky Gervais on a bad day.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: And Ricky Gervais can see the humour in that. But then also I think has that same neediness. And so it thrills him to go on stage and say things which are right up to the line of what he thinks he can get away with, because he knows that that will get him a devoted audience that he won’t get from doing more kind of wholesome Michael McIntyre-style material.
Abigoliah: Yeah. Yeah.
Tom: A lot of comedians didn’t like the fact that he went straight from nothing, to his own TV show, to selling out huge rooms – that he hadn’t done his time in the pubs and clubs.
Abigoliah: I mean, I remember when he released his very first special on Netflix and he came out wearing a crown, and I watched it. And then he reads, like… I don’t know, this card. I think it was, like, “how to prevent STDs” – I don’t know. But I remember listening to another podcast and Anthony Jeselnik was on it, and he’s a guy who will go up to the line. And Anthony Jeselnik just was like, “I’m sorry – he’s not a stand-up. He’s a comedian. He’s a writer. He’s not a stand-up. They are two different skills, and one he learned after he was famous. And whether he got good at it or not – that’s a matter of opinion.”
Tom: So basically, there are a couple of follow-ups to this, which we’ll come to. But basically, this is 12 episodes, and then the two Christmas specials essentially completing the story.
So this is the closest thing we’ve had to a sitcom, really – even though it’s shot in this mockumentary style – it’s much closer to a continuing situation even than The Young Ones, and obviously totally unlike the sketch shows that we’ve watched a lot of up until now. So it makes more sense, maybe, to ask you this question: what do you think is going to come next?
Abigoliah: Okay, I have some questions for you. Do you want me to do questions first, or do you want me to do things?
How do you feel about the American Office compared to the British Office?
Tom: A bit like with Parks and Rec: those first six episodes, that first little mini season – because I think it was a mid-season replacement – are poor. And they’re poor, in part because they’re aping the British version too closely. Literally, there are lines which are the same, like you can see John Krasinski explaining his job to camera, saying, “I’m boring myself now.” It’s the same line.
And there’s an episode in the second season where Michael Scott takes a client out – and I think he’s with the woman from head office – and it’s an important client, and she’s booked a fancy restaurant for them to go to, and he reorganises it so they go to Chili’s instead. And he’s his usual boorish self, and she’s incredibly embarrassed by the whole thing. And then at the end of the episode, the client signs a big contract. Because Michael Scott is allowed a win. Michael Scott is actually a decent salesman, for all his other manifest and multiple faults. He actually does know how to sell paper.
David Brent is never allowed a win. David Brent is a monster. And that’s why the David Brent story can run 14 episodes and then is done. But the Michael Scott story can run 400 episodes or however many they did of the American Office.
It is more renewable. And they also had a bigger supporting cast. Yeah. And one of Greg Daniels’ insights – which we talked about, I think, a little bit already – is that a good sitcom relies on that alchemy that you don’t always get, but you hope for, where the writing reinforces the performing reinforces the writing, and so on. And that positive feedback loop.
And with Parks and Rec, they even – I think – just auditioned funny people, not necessarily having characters for them to play. I think that’s how they found Retta. They were like, “Oh, well, we have to find something for her to do, because she’s amazing.” And they didn’t actually have a character, but they knew they could just populate this world with different people.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: But I’m a big fan of the American Office. I think it isn’t as profound – if I can use that word – as the British one, but they’re very different. And I think it is very entertaining.
Abigoliah: Do you have a favourite, or do you like them equally, but for different reasons?
Tom: I think they’re running different races.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: If I had to pick one, I’m always tempted to pick the originator. I think you do get points for doing it first. So if I absolutely had to pick one, I’d pick the British one. But I think they’re both really good.
Abigoliah: This is the one that – even with The Young Ones, with as much crazy stuff that was going on, with Vyvyan bursting through walls and then the puppets and everything – this is the one that I’m like, I am so curious what that set was like. And I think when it’s that subtle and that real, it must have been so hard to hold it together.
Tom: There’s lots of outtakes – again, chiefly Ricky Gervais blowing takes by cracking up laughing.
Abigoliah: Oh, and are these on, like, DVD extras?
Tom: You can find them everywhere.
Abigoliah: Yeah. I gotta think it just had to be so much fun to make.
But yeah. So my predictions.
Tom: Yes.
Abigoliah: I predict that, going on with the redundancy thing – right? – David Brent gets pressure to make redundancies, and he doesn’t want to do it because, in his heart, he is a good boy. He decides that he’ll try to trick the home office by saying he’s going to make himself redundant, and he thinks that the head office won’t go for it because he’s so valuable. And he thinks his employees will also rally to his defence, refusing to work if he’s gone.
This is how he solves it: he throws himself like a lamb to the slaughter, thinking everyone will save him. And everyone’s like, “All right.” And then he has to, like, claw it back and get it back because no one’s come to his defence.
Tom: Well, no spoilers for your sake, and for listeners’ sake, but –
Abigoliah: It happened 24 years ago! There will be spoilers throughout this entire podcast!
Tom: I will say: he does get made redundant.
Abigoliah: He does? Am I right?
Tom: Not quite. You’ve definitely got the tone. That’s exactly the kind of thing he might do.
Abigoliah: I like it when I go, “I get it.” I… Oh, should write comedy.
Tom: Let me tell you a little bit more about what happened outside the fictional world of The Office.
Essentially, two things happened as a result of this series going out. One is that Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais could do whatever they wanted, both separately and together. And the other, as we’ve talked about, is The Office became a franchise.
Now, let’s just talk about this for a second, because this very rarely works. Quiz shows and other formats like that travel around the world very, very easily. And particularly today, something like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? gets packaged up and resold and redone in country after country after country. The Traitors is happening at the moment. It’s Dutch originally and now it’s everywhere.
Abigoliah: Oh, I thought it started here.
Tom: No.
Abigoliah: Okay, interesting.
Tom: But, you know, there are some sitcoms that have made the journey. So Till Death Us Do Part became All in the Family in America, okay – and ran for nine years. A much rarer example of a success coming the other way is the British version of Who’s the Boss?
Abigoliah: You had a Who’s the Boss?
Tom: It was called The Upper Hand and it ran for seven years.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: But these are rare. The failures are much more common. Whether it’s Bea Arthur as Basil Fawlty – true story –
Abigoliah: Wait, they really?
Tom: Two seasons, I believe. Or The Golden Girls in the UK, which shot ten episodes and only aired six.
Abigoliah: Wow. By the way, The Golden Girls in the UK – I’m thinking Helen Mirren, Dame Judi Dench, Dame Maggie Smith.
Tom: Not quite. Jean Boht.
Abigoliah: But a national treasure as well.
Tom: It was called Brighton Belles and it is famously terrible.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: But the American version of The Office was huge, and it made stars of all its cast, particularly Steve Carell. It ran for – I’ve got it here – I was guessing before: 201 episodes, which puts it up there with Friends and How I Met Your Mother. And other incarnations have been variously successful. Some have been huge hits, some not so much. But it’s been on the air in Germany, Brazil, Israel, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Finland, India, Saudi Arabia, Australia. That’s not a complete list.
And it even survived the departure of its star. Steve Carell left at the end of the seventh season and it kept on going.
Abigoliah: Oh, I didn’t know that.
Tom: And even now there’s a spin-off series called The Paper, which is streaming on Peacock.
Abigoliah: Okay. By the way – just to… we said it in our last episode, but to say it again – there’s a new Office that came out –
Tom: This year.
Abigoliah: In Australia. It is streaming on Amazon Prime. And the David Brent is cast – is played by Felicity Ward, who – like spoiler alert – personal friend of me and Tom’s. And I have watched the Australian Office. I really enjoy it and I really encourage you all to go and watch it, especially because it’s a new show, and this is the only time on this podcast we’ll be able to promote a new show, because usually we do these and everyone who made them is dead. But yeah. Please go watch the Australian Office on Amazon Prime because it’s excellent.
Tom: So meanwhile, back in the UK: Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant – like I said – the world is at their feet. They start a podcast with their quote-unquote friend Karl Pilkington. They created the series Extras in 2005, another one called Life’s Too Short in 2011, and Ricky Gervais on his own wrote, directed and starred in Derek in 2012 and After Life in 2019.
Abigoliah: Derek’s the one that everyone looks back on and is like, “Yikey, Mikey.”
Tom: And that was, like, six years ago. It was not back in the day. It was recent. His stand-up career was –
Abigoliah: Sorry – was that hailed? Like, did people like it when it came out?
Tom: No, not that I remember.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: His stand-up career led to a regular spot doing things like hosting the Golden Globes, which he’s done five times. And he has a movie career. He wrote, directed and starred in the film The Invention of Lying in 2009, one called Cemetery Junction in 2010, and yes, he did resurrect David Brent for a 2016 TV film called David Brent: Life on the Road.
And Stephen Merchant briefly performed as a stand-up, and that experience informed his 2013 HBO series Hello Ladies. And he crops up as an actor here or there. He’s in everything from voicing a gnome in an animation to playing a Nazi in Jojo Rabbit, to guesting in a Walking Dead spin-off.
And what’s interesting to me is that all this stuff is variably interesting, not interesting, funny, not funny. But nothing is as good as The Office, and it’s not close. Extras is okay. But The Office is so perfect. Those 14 episodes are so terrific, and the place it leaves you at the end is so fantastic. And it’s a little bit of a mystery to me why lightning has never really struck twice. Maybe that’s just me. Maybe there are people listening who think a lot of these other things we talked about are equally amazing. But for me, The Office was an early peak that was never again scaled.
Abigoliah: Yeah, I mean, that’s not that unoriginal. If we go back to, like, Not Only… But Also or the lads from The Goon Show, like Peter Sellers went on to have a career. But you were saying Spike Milligan never could.
Tom: Not quite.
Abigoliah: You know, I mean… I guess with the Pythons, they did make – I mean, they went on to make the movies, and the movies were perfection of the thing. Yeah – the thing – the sketch show.
Tom: And most of them did things subsequently which are equally good, or even more successful, and fame-making. Like John Cleese with Fawlty Towers. Or Michael Palin has this stunning career as an actor. He’s in a drama series called GBH with Robert Lindsay, which is one of the best things that’s ever been on British television. He’s sensationally good in it.
Abigoliah: You mentioned, though, Victoria Wood went on to do other great – Dinnerladies.
Tom: Yeah, exactly. Dinnerladies is probably seen by more people than As Seen on TV. I prefer As Seen on TV. Dinnerladies is excellent.
Abigoliah: You kind of said after we watched As Seen on TV that that was kind of like the perfect –
Tom: Yeah, I think so. Wooden Overcoats is a bit faltering, and like I said, Dinnerladies…
I guess one of the things I miss in Dinnerladies is seeing her play multiple characters. So actually, her doing live stand-up is probably the very, very best of Victoria Wood, because you have everything in there. You have her chatting to the audience as herself, you have her singing songs, and you have her playing characters from time to time.
Abigoliah: Okay.
Tom: I think she cast herself a little bit as the straight person in Dinnerladies, and I think that’s not the best use of her talents. I understand why she did that, because you want somebody relatable at the middle of your story, but I think it undersells her a little bit.
Abigoliah: With Ricky Gervais becoming such a contentious character right now with his views on trans rights and what he chooses to talk about in his stand-up specials – has Stephen Merchant ever been called upon to comment, and has he ever?
Because I was thinking about this the other day: if you make something and you’re so famous for making it with someone else, and that someone else just veers in a different direction, then you’re stuck having to answer questions about it. Like Ben Affleck and Matt Damon – when Ben had, like, checked into rehab, everyone was asking Matt Damon what he thought of it, and it was like… I don’t think this is an appropriate use of everyone’s time. But yeah.
Tom: I think Stephen Merchant is a very smart man. I’ve never seen him publicly criticise Ricky Gervais, and I’ve never seen him publicly stand up for any of Ricky Gervais’ more contentious views.
Abigoliah: Listen – first of all, Stephen: I’ve never met him, but he’s around enough that when we’re talking about trying to get extra people, I’m like, I wonder if we could get him on.
Tom: We could ask.
Abigoliah: But I will say this right now – now that you’ve said that out loud – I really wonder if, like, when he goes in for an interview, people do… This isn’t an uncommon thing, by the way: it’s like, this is what I will talk about, this is what I won’t talk about. A lot of celebrities will do this. I bet that’s on his no-no list.
Tom: Yeah. Wouldn’t be surprised.
There’s something else I want to talk about as well, which is kind of the purpose – especially of this season of our show – is to look at these landmark shows and how they changed the game. So I just want to talk a little bit more about the impact of The Office, because the big comedy shows of the late 1990s were traditional sitcoms like Dinnerladies or My Family – I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that – or things that were a bit more absurdist but always character-based, like Black Books, which I know you have seen.
Abigoliah: Yes.
Tom: It’s very typical of what was on British television in the late 90s. The League of Gentlemen – ever seen that?
Abigoliah: I’ve never seen it. But, you know, people –
Tom: Are big, absurd characters. Big performances. All with laugh tracks. All kind of beginning to push the envelope in terms of what can be done visually, and big characterisations.
And then after The Office, a lot of those start to seem a bit kind of old-fashioned, or mannered, or overly stylised – and the laugh track is a big part of that. So after The Office, you get shows like Peep Show and The Thick of It and Twenty Twelve, using this mockumentary style, much more naturalistic acting, and a new emphasis on awkward social situations, and no laugh track. And this is a trend which arguably peaked with Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag.
Abigoliah: Yeah.
Tom: So here’s an example: The League of Gentlemen put out its first two seasons before The Office, and they both have laugh tracks. And its third season comes out after The Office, is more narratively ambitious, and the laugh track is gone.
Abigoliah: Interesting.
Tom: Now, it’s never quite as simple as “before The Office, everything is bright colours and shiny floors, and after The Office, everything is misery and people glancing at the camera.” But it’s part of a trend.
And there are other shows that prefigured this trend. So have you ever heard of a show called The Royle Family?
Abigoliah: Yeah. And was that a kind of mockumentary type thing?
Tom: It wasn’t mockumentary in the same sense.
Abigoliah: Isn’t Ed Gamble in it?
Tom: No, I don’t believe so. It was created by a woman called Caroline Aherne. It’s not in the same mockumentary style as in the fact that a documentary is being made is part of the plot, but it’s shot with a handheld camera, it’s shot on film, and most of it is just this working-class domestic – people watching television.
And certainly commissioning editors had no idea what to make of it. They were looking at the script going, “Where are the jokes?” Because it was all very subtle, very underplayed. And it’s warm where the office is sour. But you can see there’s a very similar sensibility to both.
Abigoliah: Sour, by the way – that’s the perfect word, because it’s not cold. It’s wonderful.
Tom: But there’s a very similar sensibility to both. And arguably we’ve done these two shows in the wrong order – for which apologies – but next episode we’re going to be meeting Alan Partridge.
Abigoliah: Ah, yes.
Tom: And we meet him in a show called The Day Today, and he’s next seen hosting his own chat show, Knowing Me, Knowing You. And that’s again very typical of this style.
So what you’re supposed to be watching when you watch Knowing Me, Knowing You is a live chat show. So when something goes wrong, Alan has to muddle through, and we don’t see – except a sort of flash of panic behind the eyes – we don’t see what’s going on behind the scenes. But when he comes back, it’s in something which feels much more like a sitcom.
In 1997, we get I’m Alan Partridge, which is all about the character’s private life. He’s living in a Travel Tavern, and although there is a laugh track, they actually built a four-walled set for most of this.
So typically if you go to a sitcom recording, it’s played out like –
Abigoliah: Like theatre?
Tom: Exactly. But they built a four-walled set so the audience is physically present, but they’re watching the action only on television monitors, and the actors can’t see the audience. So they can be in the moment with the other actors and feel like they’re physically in the space. So it just dials the performances down a little bit and makes everything feel a bit more realistic. But commissioning editors get that reassuring laughter.
And the first series of that went out before The Office, and the second series went out after. So it’s kind of all part of this general direction of travel that British comedy was going through around 2000, 2001.
Abigoliah: Did you have a question for me at the end of that? Because I feel like that started with, “I have a question.” Or did you just want to point that out?
Tom: No, I just wanted to point that out. I guess my question would be: how do you feel about laugh tracks? Because in the 80s and 90s it was just assumed that most shows would have laugh tracks. And then from the late 90s onwards, the narrative of the discourse became: why do I need to hear idiots laughing to tell me what’s funny? I’ll decide what’s funny.
Abigoliah: So I like both, because there are shows with laugh tracks that I really like. Cheers. Friends. Seinfeld.
Here’s a hot take: I think laugh tracks are going to come back. I think there’s, like, a nostalgic thing and also a bit of insider goss. There was an industry – was it a conference? – and a commissioner of a channel… I’m being vague on purpose.
Basically, they said what they’re looking for now, instead of these perfect sitcoms that are 12 episodes, is what they want is something that can run long – like Friends, like Cheers. I don’t think they know what they’re talking about. Between you and me, I think what they’re doing is they’re looking at what is most watched on Netflix and going, “We need to make more of that.” Which you don’t. People watch that on Netflix because you can watch Friends forever while you’re doing the laundry and look down and look up and not really miss anything.
Also, there’s a whole thing on second-screen viewing, but I think they’re going to try to bring back a show that has more of a 90s feel, both for the nostalgia of it, and I think they think that’s what people want now. Now, depending on what that will be, who knows if it works? But that being said, they’re going, “We want these, like, long-running shows that can go several seasons,” and then you get into a meeting and they’re like, “We want this, but, you know, like Fleabag, but different.” So, like, they don’t know what they want.
But I think in the next year or two we’re going to see a couple of sitcoms come out in the UK with laugh tracks in front of a studio audience. I think it’s going to start to happen again. I think they’ll try it.
Tom: Post this, there are even a few sketch shows without laugh tracks, and that seems to me to be particularly odd. And again, some very good stuff – some things that really work like that. But it is strange, as I’m used to the sketch shows from the 80s where – well, actually in some cases – the studio audience is like a character.
There’s a famous bit in Not the Nine O’Clock News, which we’ll get to, where Rowan Atkinson makes his entrance, walking through the audience and sort of telling them off for watching this rubbish.
Or I remember – oh, this is a weird one, actually. I don’t think I’ve spoken to you about this before, but I was at a recording of Alexei Sayle’s Stuff in the 90s.
Abigoliah: My new favourite comedian.
Tom: I know, I know. And there were lots of runners in that series, so you’d see the versions of the same sketch several times. So I think they did maybe three recording sessions in front of an audience, and they showed us lots of pre-filmed stuff to get our reactions.
But then what we saw recorded live was, like, all the versions of this character that they were going to use for the series, and one of them is the world’s worst warm-up comedian.
Abigoliah: That could have been me.
Tom: So Alexei Sayle with teeth and a wig and a frilly shirt. So we’re sitting in a television studio in bleachers, looking at a dummy set of bleachers on which are sitting 30 extras who have obviously been told they must not laugh.
So we’re watching Alexei Sayle do these terrible jokes. Our eyes then go to the impassive faces of these extras who are not laughing. That strikes us as incredibly funny, and we all kill ourselves. But they can’t afford to laugh. And they were incredibly good.
I think there were no retakes, because if any of those guys were laughing… They must just have seen it several times in rehearsals, or just… I don’t know. Was it a question on the form? “Do you have a sense of humour?” “No.” “You’re in.”
Abigoliah: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Tom: But that was a very weird experience.
Abigoliah: That’d be fun.
Tom: I like what a live audience can do for the performances. I like that back-and-forth where you can see this little flicker, even in a sitcom, of the actor adjusting their timing to account for an audience laugh. Yeah. And riding that laugh. And when you see that done well, it is a thing of beauty.
Abigoliah: Well, as a live performer, you just feed off of it so much. In the few times I’ve been in studios doing TV stuff, even if there’s not a live audience, if I see the crew start to laugh, all of a sudden I can focus in a lot more on the work than I can if I’m like, “Is this working? Is anyone laughing? Is any of this funny? Is any of this working?”
Tom: When we talked about Beyond the Fringe, we did Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, and Alan Bennett – who was in Beyond the Fringe – always complained that, unlike Peter Cook, he could never make the band laugh.
Abigoliah: Oh.
Tom: And he said it felt like being picked last at games when you were at school.
Abigoliah: I totally get that, dude. I totally get that.
Tom: But of course the band have heard all these jokes a hundred times before. Yeah. Peter Cook often managed to find a way of doing something a little bit different, a little bit new, or improvising a new line, and he could make the band laugh.
Abigoliah: Oh, that’s gorgeous.
Tom: All right. So: the shelf of fame or the bargain bins? The shelf of fame is filling up, but it’s not full yet. There are seven empty slots.
Abigoliah: I know. And okay – so right now, on the shelf of fame, we have Victoria Wood As Seen on TV, Not Only… But Also, The Only Ones –
Tom: The Young Ones.
Abigoliah: The Young Ones. Sorry, I got the names all mixed up.
Tom: Only Young, But Also.
Abigoliah: Not Only On TV, The Once.
So… Not Only… But Also, and The Young Ones. We are going to take The Office, and we are going to put it on the shelf of fame, in front of The Young Ones.
Tom: Okay.
Abigoliah: So it’s now going to be Victoria Wood As Seen on TV, Not Only… But Also, The Office, and The Young Ones.
Tom: Okay.
Abigoliah: And I wonder if the reason why I move The Office forward one is because it’s a more modern-day sitcom and it doesn’t have a laugh track. So as much as I’m like, I like a laugh track, I’m like: The Office is before The Young Ones because, you know, there’s no laugh track.
Tom: Yes, it does feel more sophisticated.
Abigoliah: It feels more sophisticated.
Tom: A laugh track would have absolutely killed it.
Abigoliah: Also, I still haven’t finished The Young Ones. A lot of my TV time is with my partner Tom, and I’ll be like, “Do you want to watch The Young Ones tonight?” And he’s like, “I can’t. It’s too stressful.” Which, as cringey as The Office is, it’s way less stressful than watching The Young Ones.
Tom: All right. Well, I wonder what he – and indeed you – will make of our show for next time.
So I’ve already kind of teed this up a little bit. And like I said, arguably we’ve done these in the wrong order, but I’m sure it doesn’t really matter. Next time we’re going to be watching The Day Today, which is an early TV showing for incredible comedy producer Armando Iannucci, and in particular is the first television appearance of Alan Partridge.
Abigoliah: I am really excited to see the birth of this iconic character.
Tom: And there are only six episodes of The Day Today in total.
Abigoliah: Did it get cancelled, or were they like, “If 12 was enough for John Cleese, we’ll do it in six”?
Tom: A little of column A, a little of column B. Okay, we’ll tell you the story next time.
But if anyone wants to watch what we’re watching before listening to our episode, we’re going to be watching episodes three and six.
Abigoliah: Okay. Is this a sketch or a sitcom?
Tom: Sort of neither.
Abigoliah: All right. I’m excited. I know nothing about this one. All right, let’s go.
Guys, thank you so much for listening to the podcast. And as we are a new podcast, the best way to have people find out about us is word of mouth. We don’t pay for any promotion. So if you do like the podcast, pop into your podcatcher app, give us a five-star review, tell a friend about the podcast. Tell an enemy about the podcast. We just – you know – we want to share this with as many people as possible. Also, you can follow us on social media.
Tom: And if you have feedback for us, send us an email at allbritishcomedy@gmail.com. Let us know what you think. Do you remember watching The Office when it came out in 2001? What do you think about cringe comedy? Do you think that studio audience laugh tracks are old-fashioned and ridiculous, or do you miss them and wish they would come back soon?
And we also have a Substack. I’ll be contributing at least one essay per episode, and maybe more if I think of enough things to accompany the show.
Abigoliah: Yes, and I will contribute essays as well – as soon as I remember that we have a Substack, which is right now, so I’ll get on that.
Until next time, guys. Thank you so much. And goodbye from me – Abigoliah.
Tom: And goodbye from me – Tom. Cheerio.