\u2018That\u2019s so Brent.\u2019 You\u2019ll hear that phrase a lot. I hear it a lot. I grew up in Willesden Green, a pocket of north-west London in the borough of Brent. Covering 17 square miles, it\u2019s one of the bigger boroughs. I love it. The actor David Mitchell proudly lived in Brent while making the sitcom Peep Show. A show that ran for nine series, co-written by Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, of Succession fame, and is widely considered to be one of the greatest comedy shows ever made.<\/p>\n
And yet, it\u2019s not The Office. It\u2019s not even close to The Office. My dad still tells me he thought The Office was \u2018real\u2019. Twenty-five years ago, on 9 July 2001, on BBC Two, when the famous credits rolled for the first time to \u2018Handbags and Gladrags\u2019, my dad thought he had watched a genuine documentary about an office in Slough. Alfred Hitchcock said that cinema was \u2018life with the boring bits left out\u2019. The same could be said for television. The genius of what Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant did was leave the boring bits in.<\/p>\n
The traditional sitcom had a certain format: set-up then joke, three per page. The problem with rolling jokes, however, is that it creates a weight of expectation. We, the audience, are expecting to laugh. Every second that we don\u2019t, the expected payout increases in price. This guy must have something big coming. You brace for a punchline that \u2013 with your tiny comic mind \u2013 you can\u2019t even fathom.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easier for other genres. A gritty drama? People give it a couple of episodes, accepting being spoon-fed every detail of the plot while the characters\u2019 names are repeated over and over again so they sort of know who\u2019s who. But comedies are not afforded that leniency. Make me laugh. Go. Now. Do the jokes.<\/p>\n
The Office rejected this. Gervais and Merchant have been quoted as saying that the original edit of the pilot was a trainwreck because it was made to look and feel like a comedy. It\u2019s a good lesson. They had filmed the funniest television pilot of all time. It was all there in the looks to camera and the B-roll photocopier cut. But edited in the wrong order, it became just another sitcom pilot. The genius of The Office isn\u2019t just the Gervais performance. It\u2019s also the edit. The addition by subtraction. The hold on a moment that, until The Office, any director would have cut six seconds earlier.<\/p>\n
Comedians are taught to master pacing and tone. For me, The Office defines it. It\u2019s slow. People who are idiots like to say that it\u2019s \u2018cringe\u2019 or \u2018just too awkward\u2019. Yes. That\u2019s the point. The stapler in the jelly should be the joke of that first episode. It\u2019s an objectively funny thing to do to someone as annoying as Gareth Keenan, and yet you\u2019ll never hear a fan of The Office mention it.<\/p>\n
What they\u2019ll more likely talk about is \u2018I think I found a lump earlier\u2019 \u2013 a dodgy wide shot of Dawn and Brent where he interrupts her afternoon snack of brie to tell her about his testicular cancer scare. The genius of this scene is that almost all the comedy of David Brent comes from the fact that he knows he\u2019s being filmed, and is playing up to the cameras. This is the first scene where David doesn\u2019t know he\u2019s being filmed. He is who he is. He\u2019d be interrupting Dawn\u2019s afternoon, camera crew or not. We learn that this man always gets it wrong, and with this simple shot Merchant and Gervais promise that our hero \u2013 and he is a hero \u2013 will deliver the comedy goods whether he performs or not.<\/p>\n
I discovered The Office late<\/p>\n
The entire rule book was thrown away. Merchant was in his twenties but Gervais was an established comic when The Office was made. He was on the radio. He liked his life. That\u2019s the key. It felt like he could take it or leave it. He was only going to make this show if he could do it exactly how he wanted. Its style still feels rebellious. It feels like only funny people had a hand in the making of it.<\/p>\n
I discovered The Office late. I was in my first year of drama school when I bought the box set from HMV. It changed my life. Until that point, I had wanted to be James Dean, but then, overnight, I wanted to be Ricky Gervais, and set out to find my Stephen Merchant. I only watch the show on special occasions now. In the same way that I listen to my favourite albums sparingly to keep them special.<\/p>\n
There was life before and after The Office. For me, and for British comedy. Imagine playing Dr Watson and Bilbo Baggins just for members of the public to call you \u2018Tim\u2019. Twenty-five years. Special.<\/p>\n
Find Matt on\u00a0Instagram<\/a> and TikTok<\/a>.<\/p>\n \t