I never thought it would have a happy ending

On The Office’s very special Christmas Specials

This piece is the last of a series on The Office (UK) which has run till the 20th anniversary of its finale this Christmas. Catch up with the previous posts by following me on Medium.

Deluded buffoons, the sting of fame, vulgar jokes cutting through lofty rhetoric were at the birthplace of modern humour: Cervantes’ Don Quixote. A novel of two gargantuan halves, its conceit is that Part 1, published ten years first, has brought fame to its hero, the old man who believes he’s a knight. And so the people on the road he and his stout squire Sancho Panza meet in Part 2 recognise who they are, bait and beat them, and join in their delusions to make further fools of them.

The Office Christmas Specials start with a title card telling us that “Nearly 3 years” have passed since the office documentary aired. In that interim David Brent has not exactly become famous. Though a man in a shop does ask for his autograph he initially mistook him for “the fat one from The Airport”. When people on the streets recognise him it’s only to yell “Lard Boy” or “Absolutely Flabulous.”