Discover Your Own David Brent With The Office, The Scripts

Hit BAFTA-winning comedy, The Office, from Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, and featuring acting talents of Ricky Gervais, Martin Freeman, Mackenzie Crook, and Lucy Davis, did a few things:

• It re-invigorated the situation comedy and added a whole new genre – the Mockumentary (Documentary Comedy).
• It introduced a new term into the dictionary “David Brent” – we’ve all met one haven’t we?
• It made stars of many of its cast members (not only in the UK but also in the US with Steve Carell in the lead role)
• It got surprisingly close to showing what it’s really like working in a typical office

The Office has been released, by BBC Books, as scripts in book form so you can enjoy the dry wit of David Brent and cohorts for season one and season two of its run. I have been reading the Season Two book which consists of 272 pages and features all six 30-minute episodes of the hit show, with an introductory section including a copy of the Wernham Hogg Newsletter (Issue Number 4), together with an insight into David Brent’s inner working demonstrated from a number of internal emails in his usual style.

It makes good fun for reading out with friends, each episode is around 40 pages long but is loosely spaced and each character is clearly identified – visual snapshots from each episode help visualise what’s going on.  A number of well known character set pieces are highlighted in their own panel giving each reader a moment to shine as they re-enact the sheer Brentiness of it all.