I remember exactly where I was when I first saw The Office. In the office. Twelve years ago this spring, an advance VHS – remember those? – arrived. I'd like to boast that I immediately spotted a classic. What I actually spotted was a quite funny workplace-based sitcom starring the politically incorrect bloke from Channel 4's The 11 O'Clock Show.
The Office was first broadcast on BBC2 on 9 July, 2001. It took a few episodes to grab me – and others, ratings took time to grow through pre-broadband word-of-mouth – but life in Wernham Hogg's Slough branch made its mark. It may not have been the first mockumentary or sitcom without a laughter track, but who could not love a show which featured staplers being put in jelly to relieve the existential tedium? A decade on, its mark remains in sitcoms that major on the humour of awkwardness.
David Brent was the ultimate post-Fawlty tragicomic figure – a man desperate for popularity who would never put a foot in it when he could stick in both size nines. Further exquisitely observed archetypes made the show even stronger: Tim the desk-bound dreamer (Martin Freeman) and Gareth, the yomping yes-man (Mackenzie Crook). But Gervais created a monster in Brent; his goateed picture remains the go-to image whenever a newspaper runs a story about bad boss behaviour.
By the time the second series went out Brent was a phenomenon. That dance – "I sort of fused Flashdance with MC Hammer shit" – in episode five cemented his immortality. In the same episode he was made redundant, while wearing a Bernie Clifton-style ostrich outfit. Tragedy and comedy never embraced so closely. Richard Curtis called The Office "the greatest programme I have ever seen."
Twelve years on I recently spent over seven hours re-viewing both series and the two specials. It is hard not to view it without thinking of Rick Gervais's post-Office work. There are moments in The Office when he uses his Extras anti-catchphrase "Are you having a laugh?". There are bad-taste quips about midgets, prefiguring the subject of this later sitcom, Life's Too Short.
Watching the box set, it became clear that while details might have dated – you will have to explain to your children that people used to smoke in bars and what a fax is – the show remains timelessly comical and also touching. Tim's love for Dawn. (Lucy Davis) is genuinely moving and when David Brent begs for his job back there is an emotional charge to Ricky Gervais's performance which he has never equalled.
These days I'm freelance and mostly work from home. Watching The Office again made me uncontrollably nostalgic. Laugh? I shall put my stapler in jelly in its honour.
