5. We Care About The Characters
Again, this may sound obvious but it's a crucial component to any comedy. If we don't care about what happens to the characters, then we're much less inclined to laugh at their jokes or share their pain. And although Brent may come dangerously close to resembling a caricature, he always has one foot grounded in reality. This is due to the fact that, as Gervais and Merchant have stated in countless interviews (and fans of the show have echoed since its very inception), e
veryone knows a David Brent. Indeed, the show's biggest success is in reflecting the real 9-5 life of your typical office worker so accurately. The hum of the fluorescent lighting, the drone of the photocopier, the clock-watching, the box-ticking, the number- crunching, the screensavers, the sandwiches, the small talk... Tim is the funniest guy in the office, modest and self-effacing. His natural flair for comedy is his only weapon in the fight against boredom. And in Dawn, the receptionist, he has found a kindred spirit. Dawn is a gifted illustrator, but finding her time split between an unhappy relationship with Lee and her unfulfilling desk job leaves her with little chance to pursue her dream career. In Brent's words (well-intentioned, but tactless as ever), her ambition is but a ''pipe dream''. Like many of us, she -and Tim- are simply in the wrong job. The Office is full of typical oddballs; people who you can sit with for years and not know the first thing about. Yet everyone seems real, relatable, almost familiar. Gareth is the bug-eyed brown-noser, Tim the popular prankster, Dawn his frumpy but sweet sidekick, Keith the weirdo, Finchy the man with the dirty jokes, Glynn the man with the dirty smile, Jennifer the no-nonsense ice queen and Neil the guy you wish you were. But then, they're none of these people and much more. They're not 'good' or 'bad' or even defined by their job role. They're not the type of people you usually find on TV but instead in every team and tower block across the country. And David Brent is the most common and complex of all. Rather than make the boss a figure deserving of our hatred (that would be too easy), he's the one for whom we feel the most pity. Brent is, by all accounts, a failure. A failed musician, a failed comedian, even a failed office manager. He's obnoxious, conceited and manipulative. But, fundamentally, he's a man who simply craves the approval of his peers. And this weakness never fails to win us over...