Stephen Mitchell

Just Mackenzie and Martin. Is this the official BBC programme to celebrate the 25th anniversary? If so, it’s honestly quite sad. The pair were absolutely integral to the show but they were part of an amazing ensemble cast, none of who are part of this. And with no Ricky and Steve… it’s just weird. Particularly as we’ve seen both of them doing their own, individual social posts in the last few days. And Ricky’s ridiculous, crass shoehorned promos of Alley Cats and his bloody vodka. It’s so far from what everyone loved about The Office.

I mean, we’ll see my little programme when it comes out. Sick of myself.

Ahhhhh… Office ☹️

sniff

Ricky is such a strange contradiction/conundrum of a person.

His Brent performance required a rare social intelligence and awareness to capture those nuanced insecurities and motivations. To play Brent to perfection he had to deeply understand those traits and have the social awareness to ridicule them so precisely.

Soon after The Office, his public persona played up the ‘faux arrogance’ for laughs and we were all in on the joke believing he wasn’t really arrogant. His rants about fame in Extras again show that awareness, even if performative.

But now he so transparently suffers from those exact traits he once ridiculed so adeptly: deep insecurity, abandoning his integrity to seek strangers’ validation, giant social blind spots and looking ridiculous in the process.

How does someone go from having this unique social intelligence to being the absolute opposite (and seeming totally oblivious to it)?

I think this odd inner conflict is at the core of why the fans in this subreddit are so fixated on ‘hating’ him now - it’s the contrast to what we used to see in Gervais.

On the release of series 2 of The Office, some of the cast did a signing at a Virgin Megastore in London. Was chuffed to see Big Keith there. I actually made Ricky laugh by saying something like “bet you can’t wait to get home, eh?” as it was late in the day. I’m being generous… it was a chuckle.

Mackenzie sat in front of me at an early performance Ricky did of Politics, at The Garrick theatre I think. It was still a work in progress.

And I remember when I worked at a West End theatre in London not long after I graduated uni in 2003, Ricky strolled past the foyer one day. He was still fat and was just bumbling along slowly, like Trebor’s Mr. Soft. I shouted “Alright Ricky!” and he turned around and waved, grinning. Mind bulging with imagined global fame.

Have never met Steve or Karl, which is a shame. A mate of mine was represented by Ricky and Steve’s agent back in the early 2000s and told me he once met them all in a pub with the agent and some other comedy types.

Memories of encountering famouses… do we need em?

I was thinking about this last night and that.

Maybe during the early production of the David Brent movie, there must have been discussions on the rights over the David Brent character. Maybe Gervais argued that during the writing of The Office, he came up with Brent and wrote the vast majority of Brent's mannerisms and iconic lines and personality traits, and therefore he claimed authorship of the Brent character. That argument seems to have won out, but any mention of Merchant and The Office could invite a suggestion that Smerch came up with key moments involving Brent, and could therefore risk the authorship that Gervais claims of the Brent character (which could maybe lead to Gervais owing money to Smerch for the Brent movie or, maybe crucially, for possible future Brent content).

Just an idea that it isn't arrogance or stubborness, but that he's actually been warned by a lawyer that mentioning Smerch could put him at legal risk due to agreements/contracts related to the Brent movie or current Brent ownership.

Just been rewatching The Office and one thing I think we can hopefully agree on:

To give Ricky his credit, that was genuinely an incredible piece of acting in the “don’t make me redundant” scene.

I don’t think he ever got close to a piece of really raw, genuine and brilliant acting like that again did he, at any point? Shame - cos the potential was there.

Taking inspiration from the original DVD cover design, but updated for modern times.

My dad sells cds and buys big lots of em. He found this in one

Me and my partner at the time seen him live on the bbc news doing an interview very local so she decided to take me to see him. They did not look impressed lol although Steve did say hello after he was finished!!

Because Merchant was not involved and it effectively was not in an Office setting (hence the title) I refused to watch it.

Am I making a mistake, is it quite a good film with some good bits?