Ash Atalla
Ash Atalla introduced himself by explaining that he’d prepared a presentation entitled ‘Creativity in the Credit Crunch’ but deciding it was too dry, he tore it up and started again. Instead, he talked candidly about his career to date and the early difficulties The Office (hit TV series) team had faced. In typical style, Ash gave us an indication of the full flavour of the stories he was about to tell with the new title: “How The Office might never have happened if I hadn’t been so crap at maths (and I may never have got to insult Danny Devito)”.
Ash was prompted to think of this approach when watching the recent Oscar Awards and hearing about how the film ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ nearly didn’t happen, illustrating the point that sometimes the biggest triumphs occur despite difficulties in initial development. Circumstances conspire so that projects hang by a thread but random events lead to surprising outcomes, often contrary to expectations.
Showing us four clips, including scenes from ‘The IT Crowd’ and ‘The Office’, Ash explained that since he grew up in the ‘Thatcher’ years he initially decided that he wanted to be a stockbroker. This would be a sure route to a high octane lifestyle of fast money, women and cars! Once he started work in this role, Ash soon realised that it wasn’t for him. He’d concentrated on the Marketing aspects of his Finance degree at Bath University and once presented with a screen full of figures began to realise that he was useless at maths. After a year, Ash had to rethink his future and decided it would be worth getting into TV.
Securing a work experience position at the BBC, he joined the team on ‘Watchdog’ with Anne Robinson – answering phones and dealing with customer queries on white goods such as Zanussi washing machines! By his own admission, his performance was just below average but he had the good fortune to be moved to another department where he worked as a Researcher for Carol Vorderman. At this stage, in his mid twenties, Ash now had two failed careers behind him and as he moved yet again, to the Comedy Department, he decided he ought to find out what he was actually any good at.
On his first day, as a junior researcher for ‘Comedy Nation’, he made the acquaintance of Stephen Merchant who, in turn, introduced him to Ricky Gervais. At that time, Ricky had a ‘seedy boss’ sketch, an idea which was developed to become the ‘David Brent’ character and eventually ‘The Office’ TV programme. The other main characters, Tim – brighter than required for his job, Dawn – the sweet, smart Receptionist and Gareth – the nightmare military nut, soon followed compiled on a five minute ‘taster’ tape that Ash and his co-conspirators showed to the then Head of BBC 2, Jane Root. The rest is, as they say, History, but it was not without its fair share of trials and tribulations.
Since the show was essentially about the atmosphere of boredom in the workplace, it was a challenge to bring the commission to screen. Ash described the process as a war of attrition! One of the conditions imposed on them was that an experienced production team should be employed. This turned out to be a crew that had previously worked on another long running TV comedy series that was hugely successful. But it led to something of a culture clash and because much of the initial footage, shots of nothing much happening to set the tone of the claustrophobia of office life in Slough, grated with the crew there was a mass walkout! However, a new team was put together and filming was successfully completed.
Poor viewing figures for the first broadcasts did not help Ash and his colleagues. For the first show, there were 1.2M viewers and that remained the case until the fourth show when a figure of 1.3M viewers was established. The BBC did some research which suggested that most people thought the show was real rather than dramatised! Only ‘Women’s Bowls’ was a less popular show, so ‘The Office’ was very much a ‘slowburn’ in the public consciousness. Like ‘Slumdog’, reviews were good but it took a while to gain momentum.
The series might have ended there and then but with late night repeats shown very soon afterwards, popularity began to grow. A BAFTA Award followed and a second series cemented its reputation, as a darker mood prevailed with David Brent’s office merging with the Swindon branch and his gradual unravelling provided awkward, hilarious and yet compulsive viewing. At the end of this second series, ‘The Office’ had viewing figures of 5M. The same ‘slowburn’ has been evident with the more recent BBC 3 ‘Gavin and Stacy’ show, which won its BAFTA on the same night that the last episode of the second series was broadcast.
Success had been hard won, ‘The Office’ was now the new ‘Friends’ and Ricky Gervais had attained star status so that the team began to enjoy more leverage and clout. The climax was reached with the nomination for a Golden Globe Award (a first for a British TV programme) and the team were flown to LA. Though the BBC’s American office briefed them that they stood no chance of winning since the other nominees were ‘Sex in the City’ and ‘Friends’. Ash commented that the whole experience, the cheesy limo etc., felt like they were being treated as though they had just won the lottery. As they arrived at the ceremony to face the cameras it was all very odd because it wasn’t as though anyone there instantly recognised them.
They decided the best policy was to enjoy the experience and it came as something of a surprise when, after much food, drink and merriment, technicians appeared to mic them up. As it dawned on Ash and Ricky that they must be about to receive awards, they became rather nervous. The evening turned out to be a triumph with Ricky also receiving the ‘Best Performer’ award and, despite their relative obscurity; ‘The Office’ won two Golden Globes! You didn’t have to be a lip reader, watching the transmission, to see Clint Eastwood in the audience asking his partner “Who the …. are they?”
Interviews on the spot followed, reminiscent of the recent ‘Slumdog’ Oscar winner interviews with similar ‘unknowns’. Both Ricky and Ash had relaxed a bit post ceremony and were lapping up all the attention when who should approach them but their hero Danny Devito. He’d come to congratulate them but, not meaning to be off hand in the presence of such an icon, in order to make small talk, Ash said something about their relative heights to which Danny Devito took great offence and walked off! Needless to say, with such an outcome to the face to face meeting they’d both longed for, Ricky was not amused with Ash.
So this was “How The Office might never have happened if I hadn’t been so crap at maths (and I may never have got to insult Danny Devito)” came about. We were delighted that Ash had torn up his original presentation, he’d told us the whole engaging story in such detail that we felt as though we’d lived the experience with him. Several questions followed from the audience and Ash was more than generous with his responses, leaving us to travel home with at least one script passed to him from one of our attendees.
We learnt a great deal about the industry and indeed about the fickle nature of fame and success from listening to Ash and we can’t thank him enough for accepting the invitation to be our key speaker. We wish him every well earned success in the future and, after hearing his fabulous story, we’re sure to be enthralled by whatever comes next (so long as he doesn’t suddenly improve his maths and become a stockbroker!), we’ll watch that space with keen interest.
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