5 British Comedies Better Than The Office
Shows From the Past Decade That Ricky Gervais Chooses to Ignore
Feb 13, 2009
The British media love an underdog. When, in the summer of 2001, a little known comedian aired the first series of his low budget sitcom the reviewers heaped adulations upon it in messianic proportions. Fast forward several years and Ricky Gervais is one of the world’s most successful comedians, despite only having four series’ worth of material and three stand-up tours under his substantial belt.
Though few connoisseurs of serious comedy would deny the genius of The Office and Extras, Mr Gervais seems to have allowed himself to become swept up in the hype surrounding his work. Particularly when pimping himself out to American audiences Ricky doesn’t hesitate to proclaim himself the one true British Comic to any Leno or Letterman within earshot. Perhaps it would offer him a well needed hit of humility to peruse some other British comedies of the past ten years that he is yet to surpass.
Peep Show (2003 – present)
Already on its fifth series with the sixth expected in 2009 Peep Show has added a healthy dose of vigour and scatology to the hackneyed ‘odd couple’ set up. Mark is a neurotic middle manager obsessed with ancient history, social mores, and his own uniquely shaped genitals. Jeremy is a struggling musician whose only concerns are fame, sex, and himself. In each episode the viewer is ushered into the living consciousness of the mismatched flatmates, and given full access to their innermost thoughts as they negotiate the everyday minefield of life, love and work.
I’m Alan Partridge (1997 – 2002)
Steve Coogan had portrayed Alan Partridge, a hopeless chat show host and sports commentator, in a variety of media throughout the nineties. In 1997, with all shows cancelled, I’m Alan Partridge finds the failed personality eking out an existence on local radio whilst holed up in a roadside travel lodge. With the moral and social attitudes of an octogenarian Daily Mail reader Alan spent two series gradually working his way back up to the middle with progressively healthier slots on Radio Norwich, a military based quiz show, and even a Ukrainian girlfriend.
Brass Eye (1997 – 2001)
Picking up where Alan Partridge’s alma mater, The Day Today, had left off three years previously Brass Eye was a satire of documentary shows such as Panorama. Focusing on hard-hitting topics of the day such as drugs, sex and, most controversially, paedophilia, anchorman Chris Morris would invent semi-plausible news stories and then invite publicity hungry celebrities to decry them on camera. Memorable highlights included Phil Collins declaring he was talking “nonce-sense”, DJ Neil Fox claiming that sex-offenders had the same genetic make-up as crabs, and David Amess MP raising a question about a fictitious drug in Parliament.
The Royle Family (1998 – 2008)
In many ways drawing up the blueprint that would be later used for The Office, this sitcom from Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash took minutiae to a new level. With no laughter track, no jokes, and no situations as such The Royle Family derived its humour from a script and cast which reflected the mundane absurdity of real life. Never capturing them outside their small council house the three series and two specials followed the uneventful lives of the Royles, a typical working class family from northern England. Dramatic events, such that they were, would often be limited to squabbling over the television controls and whose turn it was to boil the kettle. Without The Royle Family many of the ‘fly on the wall’ style sitcoms that followed would have been a lot poorer.
Spaced (1999 – 2001)
Over its brief, two series duration Spaced warped the preconceptions of standard sitcom fare, taking a familiar, flatmate-based setup and injecting it with its own unique brand of pop culture and surrealism. Although the show only enjoyed a modest degree of success global audiences will recognise the humour and cast from Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright’s more recent collaborations, which include Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. The series is also notable for providing Ricky Gervais with his first sitcom appearance, as an estate agent in the final episode.
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