Stephen Merchant, co-creator of 'The Office,' shares stories about the early days of The Office, what he thought about the even more successful American version, his complicated relationship with Gervais, and a lot more
, or wherever you get your podcasts, and be the first to hear new episodes when they are released every Tuesday.in recent years is this question of whether audiences would tolerate a character like David Brent or Michael Scott now, given how politically incorrect and crass they can be. From my perspective, the way it was handled, you knew that he was being politically incorrect and it’s not like the show was saying, “Look at how great this guy is when he says these things.
Well, I think you’re right in the sense that, certainly when we did our version, at the time there was a lot of conversation about political correctness. That was a real buzzword in the discourse here in the U.K. So the idea of what could and couldn’t be said was already a conversation. And so our show was a comment on that and about someone who is trying to adapt to this new reality and isn’t fundamentally able to.
I think the difference now is that even to deal with some of those subjects within a comedy—even if you’re trying to do it from a satirical place or from an observational place—seems to be more dangerous. It’s somehow more sensitive now to go into even the territory that we explored. Even if you’re, as I say, coming from the right place.
I’ve always said that I feel Ricky has a little bit more of a punk-rock sensibility than I do. He’s braver in a sense and a little bit more willing to kick at the system than I am. I’d like to be let into the Establishment, please, whereas Ricky’s happier to give the finger to the Establishment.
I am aware of that, but no, I get on perfectly well with Ricky. I think we just started doing slightly different projects. I returned to stand-up after a long time. And that led to my show,, which I ended up developing in the U.S. And Ricky had a couple of other projects, one of which was called. So we just sort of got out of sync, really.
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