Step aside Ricky Gervais and Steve Carell, global hit franchise The Office is heading to Australia with its first female lead.
Australian comedian and actor Felicity Ward, 42, whose casting credits include Wakefield, The Inbetweeners 2 and periodic TV appearances on Spicks and Specks and Thank God You’re Here, scored the highly coveted lead role for The Office Australia.
British comedian and actor Ricky Gervais, co-creator, co-writer and star of the UK version of The Office (2001-2003), said he was “very excited about Australia remaking my little show from the turn of the century”.
“Office politics have changed a bit in 20 years, so can’t wait to see how they navigate a modern-day David Brent,” he said in a joint official statement released by Prime Video, BBC Studios Australia and New Zealand, and local production house Bunya Entertainment on Wednesday afternoon.
Carell, who played Michael Scott as office boss over seven seasons from 2005 to 2011 (the series continued for another two seasons until 2013), enjoyed a longer tenure as regional manager of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Loosely based on Gervais’ Brent, the show won several awards and Carell walked away with a best actor Golden Globe Award for his performance in 2006.
Now, middle management enters a new era and Ward has big shoes to fill.
A ‘lady boss’
The Office Australia will be the 13th international adaptation of Gervais’ original mockumentary series, remade for audiences around the world, including France, Canada, Chile, Israel, India, the Middle East and Poland.
Ward will play Hannah Howard, the managing director of packaging company Flinley Craddick.
Production on the eight-part Amazon original starts in Sydney in June, and is set to premiere in 2024.
We’ve been given a teaser of the storyline and who the ensemble cast is, but not much more.
Will it be filmed with a single-camera setup in cinéma vérité style to create the look of an actual documentary? And will cast members look to the camera during awkward moments? Also, will there be talking head confessionals?
What we do know is that when Ms Howard gets news from company HQ that they will be shutting down her branch and making everyone work from home, she goes into survival mode, making promises she can’t keep in order to keep her “work family” together.
The staff indulge her as she plots to get impossible targets that have been set for them.
Ensemble cast
Her fellow office workers include Edith Poor (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, The Power of the Dog), Steen Raskopoulos (The Duchess, Feel Good), Shari Sebbens (The Sapphires, Thor: Love and Thunder), and Josh Thomson (How to Please a Woman, Young Rock).
Another surprise, yet high-profile inclusion, is Underbelly and House Husbands actor Firass Dirani.
“It is an honour to continue the international comedy legacy of The Office locally while introducing new, quintessentially Australian characters,” Prime Video boss Sarah Christie said.
“We can’t wait for audiences to meet Hannah Howard, the first female boss The Office format has explored.”
BBC Studios ANZ creative director Kylie Washington said: “The Office has connected with audiences around the world because everyone recognises their own David Brent. Now, it’s Australia’s turn.
“We figured the world is ready for a loveable, flawed lady boss ruling over her packaging empire in The Office Australia,” she said, adding that it’s their first scripted project.
Felicity Ward’s renaissance
Without a doubt, the London-based comedian, actor and writer Ward will bring her own comedic style, timing and improvisations (as permitted), when filming starts in June.
She wrote and starred in the Ronnie Johns Half Hour sketch show and then moved into stand-up in 2008, according to her website.
Ward has spoken at length in her stand-up routines about her struggles with mental health, and in a documentary called Felicity’s Mental Mission and also a Netflix special, What if there is no toilet?
She’ll be right at home with Brent and Scott in the dancing department, as she too wishes she was a better dancer.
A ‘timeless precinct’ for comedy
Gervais’ The Office premiered on July 9, 2001, and was set in a branch of a large paper company called Wernham Hogg in the Slough Trading Estate in Berkshire, UK.
Co-created with Stephen Merchant, it is regarded as one of the greatest British sitcoms of all time.
Gervais and Merchant’s names are not listed among the executive producer credits on Prime Video, but Bunya Entertainment’s producer Sophia Zachariou says, “Wernham Hogg’s David Brent was a leading light in comedy.
“The Office UK made the mockumentary form available to a wide audience, and that was its sheer brilliance. I can only hope that global audiences find our Aussie take on The Office as funny, self-deprecating, and believable as those that have gone before it.”
Since 2019, Prime Video has commissioned 26 Amazon Original series in Australia including The Test: A New Era for Australia’s Team, Making Their Mark, Back to the Rafters, Class of ’07 and Deadloch.
