| Product: |
Office, The |
| Date: |
13.07.03 (359 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: hilarious yet subtle
Disadvantages: none
As the good people of dooyoo who make an effort to read my ops may have found, I have been inactive in the dooyoo world for a few months. I felt I was beginning to write ops for the sake of it. My first spurt on the sight consisted of many ?forced? ops-opinions with a subject matter that I was not really passionate about. I found myself looking for things to have an opinion on and write an opinion about and I felt this was not the way to go about constructing my ops for it would inevitably result in half-hearted pieces that would be greatly lacking in quality. Days and weeks went by and I still found nothing about which I felt passionate enough to write an op and I gradually lost the desire to write ops on dooyoo. That is until I encountered my source of inspiration in the rare gem that is The Office. Actually, ?inspiration? is an understatement. This program grabbed me by the arm, dragged me to my personal computer and plonked me on the swivel chair with authority and I?m back.
The beginning of 2002 saw my father, much against his principles agree to purchase Sky Digital. However, in order not to admit complete defeat he restricted us to having only the package with the minimum channels available which consisted of a couple of music channels, crappy sports channels, a ridiculous amount of shopping channels and the secondary terrestrial channels such as BBC Choice, ITV2 and E4. Our favourite was E4 with delights such as Jackass, new Ally Mcbeal, new West Wing and The Office on show every day. My ignorance at the time caused me to immediately disregard The Office. In fact the program caused me much annoyance at times when it over-ran into The West Wing, which came after it. I forgave myself though for I feel I was cruelly deceived as I conceded that on the surface, the program can surely not strike the prudent man as holding much promise.
For starters, it would seem that the imagination of the creators had called in sick, thus resulting in the prog
ram?s straight-to-the-point title ?The Office.? After seeing it listed in the TV guide, there is a feeling of disbelief and to an extent disappointment, when you tune in to find that the program, as promised by the title and in accordance with natural expectations quite explicitly depicts the goings on in an office. How can realistic portrayal of ?office life? be in the slightest bit entertaining? Apart from solitary imprisonment is there a more boring and soul-destroying place on this earth than an office? It would thus be hard to imagine how one could extract a sufficient amount of comedy from it. I was left with not an ounce of desire to sit down and watch the program.
Recently though, I had the programme enforced on me by new friends at uni. Day after day I?d venture one of their rooms to find them watching this programme. I soon came to realise that a condition I had to satisfy in order to be accepted into the gang was the constant viewing of the office. I thus decided to borrow the first series DVD to see what all the fuss was about. I sat down and watched the first series and was immediately hooked. Tim?s constant teasing of Gareth and Brent?s general demeanour had me almost in tears. I saw that much laughter could be drawn from the tedium that is the everyday office. The ?spoof documentary? is deceptive in that it provides ample opportunity for comedy. It allows for those funny natural human instincts such as the obvious flirting between characters Tim and Dawn and those little awkward silences. The show does this really well, and much of this can be attributed to the cast, whose acting is so natural that it can so easily be mistaken for a real documentary as I so did in my Sky Digital days.
Cast
Ricky Gervais ? David Brent
Former 11 O Clock Show reporter Ricky Gervais not only stars in the Office, but also created, co-directed and co-wrote the film with pal Steve Merchant. Gervais plays the ?superstar? boss David Brent,
a popular, funny, charismatic boss. In his own mind that is. In fact Brent is quite the opposite. He tries very hard, in vain to be one of the ordinary workers, giving them nicknames, joining in the banter and the like. He seems to have no idea whatsoever of the notion of context. He says and does things, which really should be left for outside office hours, or indeed things that should never be said at all. For instance, in one of the early episodes in the first series, he is seen to be sharing a joke with ?pal? Chris Finch, which goes something like ?What?s black and slides down Nelson?s column????Winnie Mandela, which I personally found hilarious, yet cringed at the thought of displaying such crude humour in the workplace and in front of cameras. It is immature, childish behaviour like this that generally constitutes the comedic appeal of this character. David Brent is an immature, childish and sleazy attention seeker who thinks he?s the greatest man to have walked the planet yet you find yourself nevertheless liking him. It?s pity more than anything. No doubt you?ve all witnessed somebody do the David Brent dance and no doubt it was funny at first but the next time they do it you will in fact clobber them yet such is the genius of the man that he makes thousands dance like monkeys.
McKenzie Crook ? Gareth Keenan.
McKenzie is an Arsenal supporter, which is not at all surprising given his genius in portraying the pedantic Gareth Keenan. Everybody knows a Gareth. You know, the pizza faced kid at school who would nevertheless go after the girlies as if he were God?s gift to women, the dude behind the counter at Mcdonald's who proudly brandishes his 5 stars as if they were OBEs. Gareth is Team Leader in the office, as he regularly reminds everyone. Gareth used to be in the (territorial) army as he regularly reminds everyone. Gareth, like Mr Brent is a complete loser, as he conveniently fails to remind everyone. His interaction with Tim form
s the most part of his comedy. Throughout the episodes we constantly see Tim teasing Gareth, winding him up so he and his audience can laugh at him. Like the time when the new boy started and on meeting the two witnessed one of their petty disputes. Tim had in fact submerged Gareth?s stapler in green jelly. Gareth, in a nutshell is a harmless wannabe.
Martin Freeman ? Tim Canterbury
Apparently sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. Watch Martin Freeman?s performances as Tim in the office. Tim is my favourite character and Martin pulls it off so well. I doubt anybody could play Tim better. Martin can convey sarcasm so effortlessly, often with a single facial expression or a single sound. When Brent and Gareth get up to their cringe-worthy ways, one look at Tim?s sarcastic, this-is-what-I-have-to-work-with face wraps it up. When Brent brings his guitar in for a singing session during a group training exercise, you laugh as Tim ?enthusiastically? sings along with Brent?s song while unbeknown to David, he is in being mocked. Tim?s intelligence far exceeds that of the other characters and he does not want to be amongst such inferior beings. That is except for the secretary ? Dawn who Tim obviously fancies. However, Tim is always knocked back when he makes advances towards the young secretary given she has a boyfriend. The interaction between these two characters adds much to the comedy because they share many uncomfortable silences and way too obvious flirtation which I'm sure we can all identify with.
As one may be able to tell by the diminishing standard of my writing, I am getting quite tired now and I am ready for bed so I won?t write about the other characters except to say that the lady who plays Dawn, in case you did not already know is in fact Jasper Carrot?s daughter and Keith, the fat dude with the goatee is hilarious. Just one look at his expressionless face cracks me up every time especially when Brent describes him as mad and wild.
Goodnight people.
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