Every Mitchell And Webb Film And TV Project Ranked From Worst To Best
3. The Smoking Room
Readers of a certain age may have just had a massive nostalgia trip at mention of The Smoking Room. The BAFTA winning series, which originally aired on BBC Three, ran for two series in the mid 2000s, was well received by critics and viewers alike but then seemed to completely disappear from public consciousness.
Robert Webb plays the central character Robin, something of an Everyman embodying the frustrations of many an intelligent if not particularly ambitious office worker. The show is set in a single location and even manages to build relatively complex characters that are never actually seen on screen. Robin also has a storyline as a closeted gay man that is dealt with incredibly sensitively for the time and is not allowed to completely take over who the character is.
In one of the oddest reasons for a series to end, it really fell victim to the central premise (a room set aside for smokers in British offices) no longer being a thing. As part of an anti-smoking drive across the European Union, smoking was banned in all public indoor spaces in England in 2007.