Fetch the acoustic guitar and twiddle your TM Lewin tie because it’s the 25th anniversary of The Office. Yes, it’s a quarter of a century since we were introduced to Wernham Hogg paper company’s David Brent – a friend first, boss second, probably an entertainer third.
To commemorate the majestic mockumentary’s silver jubilee, actors Martin Freeman and Mackenzie Crook are reuniting to present a BBC documentary looking back at the show. Meanwhile, co-creator Ricky Gervais is releasing a retrospective special on his YouTube channel.
From casting near-misses to behind-the-scenes secrets, here’s 25 nuggets of trivia you probably didn’t know – one for each year of Slough-based brilliance. See you down Chasers nightclub to celebrate.
1. Martin Freeman could have played Gareth
Although it’s hard to imagine now, Freeman originally auditioned for the role of “assistant to the regional manager” Gareth Keenan, which ultimately went to Crook.
“It was only as I was leaving the audition that Ricky asked me to read for Tim,” he has said. Freeman was duly cast as self-deprecating sales rep Tim Canterbury. The rest is Hat FM history.
2. The staring janitor is part of the family
The mute caretaker who appears every now and then – standing motionless and looking straight at the camera – is co-creator Stephen Merchant’s dad, Ron. “We put him in because we thought he had a funny face,” said Merchant Jr.
3. Copy that
In every single episode, there is a shot – filmed from the exact same angle – of a whirring photocopier making multiple copies of a document.
4. Ratings were so bad, the show was nearly cancelled
It’s now hailed as one of the all-time great British comedies but when The Office aired in summer 2001, viewing numbers were so low that it almost wasn’t recommissioned. “Audiences were rotten,” the executive producer, Jon Plowman, has said. “But the BBC repeated it within a few months and it doubled its figures.”
“The first series got the lowest ever BBC focus group score,” recalls Gervais. “Joint bottom alongside women’s bowls which had been rained off.”
5. Olivia Colman showed her star quality
Oscar-winner Olivia Colman’s cameo as a journalist named Helena from the trade magazine Inside Paper was one of her first TV appearances, other than sketch shows, and predated Peep Show by a year. You can tell Colman was destined for big things by the way she kept a straight face while Brent said lines such as: “I don’t go around using chicks and shit. I’m just chilling out while I’m young.”
6. The Canadian boss is named after Gervais
The show has been remade in 16 territories. In the Mexican version, the boss character goes by the brilliant name of Jerónimo Ponce III. In the Canadian French-language edition, set in Montreal, the manager is called David Gervais, in homage to Ricky.
7. One scene took 74 takes
The record number of takes for any scene was Tim’s appraisal with David Brent, which took 74 tries because Freeman and Gervais kept corpsing. Freeman struggled to get through the dialogue when Brent said: “You could be in the hot seat like me,” and did finger guns at his chair.
“I changed the way that I did it for every take and Martin just couldn’t cope,” Gervais recalled. “He is such an ‘actor’, too. He loves his craft. He was probably sat there thinking: ‘Who’s this fucking fat buffoon who’s never acted before? Why is he in charge?’”
Another scene requiring many takes saw Tim making small talk with the deadpan accountant Big Keith, who then bit into a scotch egg. The late actor Ewen MacIntosh went through two multipacks of the savoury snack because they couldn’t keep it together.
8. Nessa from Gavin & Stacey was almost Dawn
Wernham Hogg’s receptionist, played by Lucy Davis, could have been a different familiar face. “Interestingly, we saw Ruth Jones for Dawn,” the casting director Rachel Freck told Esquire in 2021. “She’d just done East is East. I wrote nice comments about her in my notes and she was a possibility.”
9. Staff training day is a standout
Both Gervais and MacIntosh named the staff training episode (“Gareth, what’s your ultimate fantasy?”) as their favourite from either series. The late Matthew Perry, AKA Chandler in Friends, praised the same episode as “possibly the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life”.
10. The cast could have been non-actors
Gervais and Merchant originally planned to tour the UK and unearth “real people” to play the supporting parts, adding authenticity to the show’s documentary style. “That was until we realised real people are terrible actors,” said Merchant. “That’s why they’re not actors.”
11. Cat Stevens almost sang the theme tune
Merchant wanted the Cat Stevens song Sitting for the show’s theme music, saying on XFM: “I still feel we should have used that one but Cat Stevens’ people wouldn’t let us, or it was too expensive or something.”
They also considered The Logical Song by Supertramp, before finally settling on a version of 1960s blue-eyed soul tune Handbags and Gladrags, performed by Big George.
12. Brent and Jennifer had history
There were speculative backstories for some characters that never made it into the show. One was that big boss Jennifer Taylor-Clarke (Stirling Gallacher) was old college friends with Brent, hence putting up with his workplace foibles for so long.
The co-writers also theorised that Brent had worked his way up through the ranks at Wernham Hogg, rather than arriving at manager level, hence his emotional attachment to the company.
13. Gareth is actually a child
One thread throughout The Office, according to Gervais, is portraying “men as boys”. The ultimate example is Gareth, who resembles a teenager in a man’s body. That’s because he basically is.
“Gareth is based on a bloke I went to school with,” said Gervais on the US podcast SmartLess. “That’s why he’s stuck as an adolescent. I had a list of about 50 ludicrous things that this 14-year-old kid told me. He once said: ‘If you get captured by cannibals, they show you pornographic pictures so you get an erection and there’s more meat.’ Put those gems in an adult’s mouth and it’s hilarious.”
Gervais and Merchant originally had a “strapping squaddie type” in mind for the role, due to Gareth’s military obsession and claim to be a lieutenant in the Territorial Army (“I’ve killed a man. With a thumb”). That all changed when Crook auditioned.
14. The BBC is full of Brents
When producer Plowman questioned how it was possible for a boss as bad as Brent to keep his job, Gervais replied: “Let’s take a walk around the BBC, shall we?” There appeared to be enough Brent types in the corporation’s corridors to pacify Plowman.
15. Pinocchio nose mime was pivotal
The series opening scene took several lines directly from a real-life interview with a temp agency that Gervais attended when looking for a summer job, aged 17. “The recruiter was in his mid-30s, wearing a bad suit, ponytail and glasses,” he wrote on Facebook. “His opening sentence was: ‘I don’t give shitty jobs.’ He phoned his friend and at one point said, ‘Yeah, of course he’s 18,’ then he winked at me and did the Pinocchio nose mime.”
Decades later, Gervais did the same mime while Brent lied down the phone (“Has he passed his forklift driver’s test? He gives the tests”). It was this moment that convinced Plowman to produce the show.
16. Des’ree lyric was nod to a local lass
The song lyric that Brent has printed out and pinned up by his desk (“Money don’t make my world go round / I’m reaching up for the higher ground”) is from Crazy Maze by the pop-soul singer Des’ree, who happened to grow up in Slough. When the unsuccessful secretarial candidate Stuart Foot (regular Gervais collaborator Robin Ince) politely asks about it, Brent proceeds to croon an entire awkward verse.
At least it wasn’t the lines from Des’ree’s hit Life – “I don’t want to see a ghost / It’s the sight that I fear most / I’d rather have a piece of toast / And watch the evening news” – which was voted the worst lyric ever in a BBC Radio 6 Music poll.
17. There were 30 staplers in jelly
Because the scene where Tim puts Gareth’s stapler in jelly (“Only a trifling matter”) was shot multiple times, a different prop was needed for each.
Props master Matt Wyles told Esquire: “My first job on The Office was to make about 30 jellies with staplers in them. I was thinking: ‘This is crazy.’ I’d just moved into a house share in Twickenham and had to make them in the kitchen the night before, then keep them in the communal fridge.”
Wyles also revealed that he put stones inside Tim’s shoes, lending them extra weight so Finchy could throw them over the pub in the quiz episode.
18. German doppelganger sparked a lawsuit
In 2004, Germany’s ProSieben network made a comedy called Stromberg, set at an insurance company. The BBC thought it was so similar to The Office they threatened legal action for copyright. In the end, an agreement was reached, which included giving Gervais and Merchant an “inspired by” credit.
“I was surprised,” said Gervais. “It’s not like the Germans to just march in and take something that isn’t theirs.”
19. Tim is a 21st-century Oliver Hardy
Tim’s fourth-wall-breaking was inspired by a certain silent movie double act. When Crook did something idiotic, Merchant would shout “Do Oliver Hardy!” and Freeman would give an exasperated look to camera.
Gervais has taken the comparison further: “The Office is basically a room full of Laurels and one Hardy, which is Tim. His character is pretty common in comedy: that person who thinks they’re better than everyone else but it doesn’t seem to get them anywhere. Lisa Simpson, Woody Allen, Bob Hope … they’re all Tims.”
20. Gareth’s hair was a dealbreaker
Freck’s original audition notes on Crook read: “Very understated, very funny and inventive. Consistent. I think he could do it. Haircut?” After the second round, she wrote: “Cast. Hair clause.”
His hair needed to be bad but it still wasn’t bad enough. Before shooting the pilot episode, Crook reportedly went into a barbershop and asked for “the worst haircut you can think of”.
21. Forklift driver bookended the first series
At the beginning of the debut episode, Brent is seen hiring somebody for a forklift driver’s job. The same man, played by Neil “Jeff from Peep Show” Fitzmaurice, is shown being fired by Brent at the beginning of episode six. Although typically, their meeting is derailed by a discussion of whether elves exist.
22. Brent’s dance was made up on the spot
Despite the show’s naturalistic, spontaneous feel, Gervais and Merchant say “95%” was scripted. However, one of the rare improvised moments is among the most famous: Brent’s cringe-inducing dance (“fusing Flashdance with MC Hammer shit”).
“It wasn’t rehearsed or choreographed,” Gervais has said. “I just went berserk for 30 seconds, then had to have a sit-down for 30 minutes.”
23. Ashley Jensen was heard but not seen
The voice of the unseen, uncredited BBC interviewer in the 2003 Christmas specials belongs to Ashley Jensen. She would go on to co-star with Gervais in Extras.
24. It was nearly narrated by John Nettles
The pilot episode was more overtly a documentary pastiche – even down to having a voiceover by John Nettles of Bergerac and Midsomer Murders fame.
The show’s editor, Nigel Williams, told Esquire: “It was literally like, ‘David Brent works at Wernham Hogg …’ So it was very crude in its setup, compared to what it ended up being.”
25. Mic drop moment
When asked about their favourite moment from The Office, Gervais and Merchant have given the same answer. “I like the bit where Tim takes his microphone off at the end of series two,” said Gervais.
Merchant agrees: “The moment when Tim unhooks his mic and tells Dawn how he feels but we never hear what is said. I thought it was a perfect way of using the fake documentary style to tell our story.” She said no, by the way. Until she didn’t.
• Ricky Gervais’s YouTube special is released at 6pm on Wednesday 8 July. Mackenzie Crook and Martin Freeman Remember … The Office airs on the same night at 10pm on BBC Two and iPlayer
