The Smoking Room

It's not often that i find myself almost pi**ing myself when watching a very dry comedy such as this, but "The Smoking Room" gets me laughing my ass off every time (sorry for the Americanisms).

As a sit-com, with a very narrow set of locations (i.e. the smoking room) it can only ever rely on the characters and the script, no big budgets for explosions, morphing into other creatures, blood or CGI in this show :) It does very well with what it has.

Like a Leprechaun that manages to get to the pot of gold and becomes the CEO of a multi-national conglomerate, "The Smoking Room" achieves everything that you want from a comedy. Good characters, a great script and amazing acting that makes the script and the characters come to life.

Without the characters, script and actors to make it all possible, "The Smoking Room" would merely be a poor attempt at comedy, but when they all come together, as they do in this TV series, comedy genius is created.

:-)

The Smoking Room (TSM) is only ever compared with The Office because both are set in workplaces! Where TSM differs is that the daily grind of worklife does not drive the story.

In TSM, office discussions are banned. Our regular set of smokers skive off their working day and discuss biscuits, holidays, Eskimos, crosswords, and any number of other topics. Characters wander in and out of the room, and leave their day job outside.

It's part of the joy of the series to try to piece together what the characters do: Annie and Sally are graphic designers; it's clearly a major company with several different branches. Occasional glimpses of the outside world are provided: a vitally important Japanese client visits, and is in need of a cigarette. No lighter or matches can be found. The tension rises as the regulars try to keep their VIP happy, and she demonstrates her dislike of all things British (notably Penguin bars and Jim Bowen's gameshow Bullseye).

There are plenty of asides regarding unseen characters (Lil's friend Tess Pownall is described as having a chest like "a pair of wizened yams"), plenty of huge laughs, scathing one-liners, running jokes, and some great ongoing stories. The story of Ben from the post room, hints about a past relationship for Sharon the non-smiling boss, Janet's desperation to be included leading her to a not-necessarily happy ending ... two series and a Christmas special have been made, and I can only hope for a third. The second series ends with a number of colossal cliffhangers: the characters are so believable and their situation so genuine that I can't wait to see them again.

I missed this program when it first appeared on BBC 3 around two years ago. The BBC, and the UK in general have produced some dreadful "sit-coms" of late, so when I seen advertised what looked like a hybrid of The Office and The Royle Family I gave it a miss. That's not particularly true though. It's like The Office only in the fact it's set in an office and like the Royle family only because it's set entirely in real time. Few will agree but I think it's much better than both.

If I were to compare it to other sit-coms I'd say Friends crossed with Daria( MTV cartoon, very cynical.) I think you have to watch quite a few episodes to get the feel of it. Initially they all seem quite ordinary and not especially likable characters. Over the course of the series though you realise the cause of all their irritating habits. Annie is irritating and irritable because she is massively self-deluded about her life being a success. Lilan initially seems desperate but you later realise it's because she's starved of attention. Janet appears prissy and stern but she's seems to be trying to shed that image by socializing with the smokers( even though she doesn't smoke) in nearly every episode. I could go on with the other characters but they'd definitely be spoilers.

It's now half way through the second series and we now have a very well developed set of characters, excellent writing( just look at some of the quotes on this site) and brilliant actors and actresses. The sort-of-main character( he's on screen from beginning to end of every episode unlike any other character) is played excellently by Robert Webb. He seems to get bleaker every episode. Robin is clearly more intelligent than everyone else around him, but prefers to make snide( and hilarious) comments about others stupidity than do anything with his own life. It's an excellent character as it's one which is common in real life. This is true of the rest of the cast and show in general. It's strange but not a contrived way. It's the genuine oddness and humour you can find in the real world, though obviously compacted into a shorter space of time. It doesn't get bogged down in the dull realness of The Royle Family either though. Nor is it as ridiculous and pained as The Office or Friends often were.

It's probably fair to say that The Smoking Room has stolen ideas and inspiration from other sit-coms. But unlike many others it stole the best parts. A good example is the sit-com device. How many sit-coms have never seen characters, love triangles or a will they, won't they relationship? A lot, and they all have the same outcome. The Smoking Room uses a much better, though already used one,; The never directly mentioned, long running storyline. It actually makes people think a bit more about what their watching and makes people notice jokes they may otherwise have missed. The only other example I can think of was in Daria. It's a difficult thing to do correctly, it can just look blatant and stupid. The strength of the writing and acting though hold it together excellently, like the show itself. Forget Little Britain or anything Peter Kay's in: This is the best British comedy around by some distance.

This show is just what witty dialog should be. If you don't have a attention span then you probably wouldn't like it, but if you can really listen, it will have you in stitches. It's just so funny because it's what someone would really say without trying to be funny. There's no real plot, its just hilarious people who are very relate-able in a setting that's very relate-able. You can really get to like the characters after a while with a lot of running gags. The punchline at the end of the first episode is pure gold. Why can't there be more shows like this, i mean Clint is one of the funniest characters ever. Just good actors and great lines in very down to earth situations.

In every workplace there is a place where the shunned go – a place where people go who have only one thing in common but spend several times a day together nonetheless. They are the office smokers; some hang around outside the building but in this office they have a room together. As the smokers come and go on their various breaks we are treated to all manner of inane discussions, banter and office politics.

Although it doesn't help to compare this show to the vastly superior The Office it is hard not to. Not only is it set in the 'real work' much more than most BBC sitcoms but the marketing for it all tried to make sure that we came to this off the back of The Office's fame. Initial disappointment is pretty much guaranteed because this is not as sharp as the observation from The Office and is funnier in a different way. Once I realized that this had been mis-sold and is really just a normal sitcom then I was able to settle into it a lot more. As a sitcom it is better than the norm as it is at least recognisable (as opposed to forced family sitcoms) and the jokes are quite good and pretty much match the sort of banter you wish you could have. In reality most smoking room conversations are just small talk and b*tching but that wouldn't make for much of a series, so the pop culture references and the amusing dialogue keep it moving much better.

The lack of a sharp edge on the material is a problem and I didn't feel that the series managed to build characters and stories as well as it should have done. The cast are all OK but I was never really sold on them as 'real' people – rather they were always actors albeit actors delivering some funny lines. In The Office (sorry to keep comparing – but the BBC started it!) the people were all recognisable and the laughs were tempered by the horror of seeing our workplaces slightly condensed into this one. Here performances are OK from Ayres, Webb, Marshall and the others but they feel like a sitcom cast and it is only the funnier than normal material that makes them rise above the genre.

Overall this is not The Office and it is important to know that and not be sucked in by the attempts by the show and the BBC to align it with that. Rather this is a sitcom that is set in an office environment – it is not as sharp or as well observed as it could have been but it still manages to be funny. Watched as a sitcom it is funnier than the genre and blessedly free of canned laughter but this is just a sitcom and comparisons to The Office will only help it get an audience at the start – not keep it.