The Office, a BBC award winning series created by it's main actor Ricky Gervais is a satirical "Fly on the wall" Mockumentary that revolves around modern office life. .
David Brent is the centre of the show and is the plump goateed manager of a Slough paper merchant and is frankly the jaw droppingly awful human being to appear on television for a long time. It's not that he's malicious or cruel in fact he prides himself on his sense of humour (which isn't appreciated or understood by the majority of his co-workers) and the "laid back" atmosphere he maintains at work it's that he's extremely selfish and arrogant. In a nutshell he is a former class clown wannabee who has somehow drifted into a position of authority by his mid-thirties and endlessly stalks the hallways of the office wearing a desperate rat like grin, darting his beady little eyes at anyone & everyone, subjecting them to his crushingly unsuccessful attempts a witty banter.
In addition to David Brent there are several other key characters of note, including .
The sallow, skinny equally unpopular Gareth Keenan, Dawn the unhappily engaged receptionist and finally Tim the well liked salesman who is the closest thing this series has to a likable hero.
The show works on many levels, the relationships between these desperate characters (especially the flirtations that go on between Tim & Dawn, anyone that's seen the series would admit that they've never wanted a relationship to succeed as much as these two co-workers) are fantastic and the comic timing of all the actors leads you to believe that this is a picture perfect account of what could go on in our CBD.
The razor sharp script exudes wit and is so tightly constructed that it is indistinguishable from that of a documentary. The show inter cuts footage of it's hard working subjects in action with interviews in which subjects explain their professional philosophies and their feelings about their jobs and co-workers (to much delight).