Interview: Ash Atalla, producer, The Office (Evening Standard)
By David Rowan
AS you might expect from the producer of The Office, Ash Atalla is not taking his new found celebrity entirely seriously. At the Hollywood party to celebrate winning two Golden Globes last month, he decided to have an argument with Jude Law over which of them was the biggest "ponce" for using lip balm.
Later, when trapped in a painfully bland interview for the E! channel, he had some fun making his host admit on live TV to not having seen the show. The Office may have made Atalla the hottest comedy producer in town - and today's hangover comes from partying with BBC1 boss Lorraine Heggessey and Kim Medcalf from EastEnders - but all he really wants is to have a laugh.
He never expected to win, for a start. At the awards rehearsal, Atalla, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, Martin Freeman and Lucy Davis were too busy " mucking about" on the red carpet to take in the run-through. By the time The Office beat Sex and the City to win best comedy series, and Gervais trumped Matt LeBlanc as best comedy actor, Atalla's heart was pounding so loudly that he could barely hear the audience's bemused mutterings.
"The Americans must have been absolutely furious," he says grinning, back home now and sitting in a Fitzrovia café. "I heard that when our names were read out, Clint Eastwood was seen mouthing, 'Who the f*** are they?'" Still, he achieved his ambition of visiting the set of 24, whose cast, like The Simpsons' Matt Groening, are huge fans.
Other than that, he did not share Gervais's appetite for schmoozing with the Hollywood honchos.
"You can get a meeting with anyone in LA when you've won," he says. "Your first reaction is to be massively flattered, but I was just thinking, this isn't my town. I'm not going to get seduced, having meetings that will probably go nowhere. I just love London too much." Besides, Atalla, 31, has a new challenge. Next Monday, he leaves the BBC to join Talkback, the company behind such comedy hits as I'm Alan Partridge, Smack the Pony and Da Ali G Show. His brief is to develop new talent.
WHAT, then, will be the next Office? "It's actually been a fairly quiet year for comedy, " he reflects. "I'm hearing lots of people quoting Little Britain - it's being treated a bit like The Fast Show was. After shows like The Office, which are quite downbeat and slow, and Phoenix Nights, people are ready to laugh again at men in wigs and silly catchphrases." He rates Channel 4's Peep Show as "brilliant", and is a fan of the US series Curb Your Enthusiasm. "I'm more attracted to the dark side, but I also laugh at stupid news stories - like that girl who had too much Sunny Delight and turned orange.
That was great!" He does not rule out working again with Gervais and Merchant, now writing "another observational comedy about a man who says exactly what he's thinking".
"But I've left the BBC, and they haven't, so there are no firm plans at the moment." He is relieved not to be working on NBC's own version of The Office, although Gervais and Merchant are consultants.
"It might work with American characters," he says delicately, "but what's amazing is the amount of people saying it's going to be a f***ing disaster.
The track record with US remakes of British shows is not great." He thinks the British version was such a hit because the characters were so recognisable. "They're a bit like The Spice Girls - you might identify with Baby or Sporty," he says.
"People say to me, 'I know a Brent or a Gareth', or 'I'm Dawn'. There was something for everyone. It also took head-on the reality of people's lives, never quite earning enough but still managing to have fun on the weekend." The show was not, he insists, cynical about the working lives portrayed. "While we all have our dreams, the reality is there isn't room for 100,000 illustrators or painters in Britain. But actually, a massive call centre has just opened up the road that needs 3,000 staff.
That's life. It doesn't mean everyone has failed." How much of The Office was his input? He pays full credit to "the boys" for the most accomplished script he has ever seen, but his budgeting role seems to have helped shaped Wernham Hogg's wider family. "The plan was to hire extras, but I worked out that it wouldn't cost much more to use actors. Out of that process grew characters who weren't in the original script. At some point in the first series, Ewan Macintosh started doing that very slow, eyesclosed delivery that was brilliant - and so grew the character of Big Keith." Atalla is often asked if he was the inspiration for Brenda, played in a wheelchair by Julie Fernandez.
After all, he uses one, having developed polio as a baby living in Egypt.
He came to London as a boy when his father's job moved. "I'm sure Ricky and Steve would have seen someone in a wheelchair before me," he says. "It was never intended to be anything more than a comic device." He, for instance, had never been abandoned at the top of a flight of stairs.
Although he once co-presented a Channel 4 series on disability, Freak Out, Atalla is no campaigner. "I don't know if that's a letdown to the disability-rights groups, but I don't think I've ever experienced prejudice because of it," he says. "Yes, I get patronised all the time - I've certainly been pulled away from tables in the pub - but it just washes off me. And while I've failed plenty of times, I can't say I failed because of my wheelchair." Today he lives - as he has for years - with his younger brother in King's Cross. He has done well financially out of the show, particularly DVD sales, but will say nothing more specific than "I can now afford curry sauce on my chips".
He did a degree in business and finance at Bath University. He then took some "wrong turns", including brief careers as a stockbroker and a currency trader. Then, at all of 22, he faced a "midlife crisis", decided to try television and found unpaid work on BBC Watchdog.
"You start off being a runner - but as I can't walk, let alone run, they never sent me out to get coffee," he recalls.
Instead, he worked as a researcher to Anne Robinson, and then Carol Vorderman, until he transferred temporarily to the comedy unit. He wrote scripts and sketches for radio.
"That was the first time in my life I thought I might actually be good at something," he says. He met Merchant, championed his training film about Gervais's "Seedy Boss" character ... and the rest is history.
It was Atalla who persuaded the BBC's head of comedy, John Plowman, to adopt and push The Office, but did he ever fear that the series might bomb? "I was terrified that the first episode began so slowly and drably that it would put people off," he admits. "But Ricky and Stephen held their nerve." Still, the initial audiences were worryingly low. "The BBC did some research, and the only thing that week that was less popular was women's bowls. Which I'm surprised about, because I love women's bowls."
But now it has proved such a success, was it right to end it for good? "Absolutely - the last episode tied things up so well. But maybe," he grins, "we should start a channel where Big Keith just eats Scotch eggs ..."
(Evening Standard, February 11 2004)
AS you might expect from the producer of The Office, Ash Atalla is not taking his new found celebrity entirely seriously. At the Hollywood party to celebrate winning two Golden Globes last month, he decided to have an argument with Jude Law over which of them was the biggest "ponce" for using lip balm.
Later, when trapped in a painfully bland interview for the E! channel, he had some fun making his host admit on live TV to not having seen the show. The Office may have made Atalla the hottest comedy producer in town - and today's hangover comes from partying with BBC1 boss Lorraine Heggessey and Kim Medcalf from EastEnders - but all he really wants is to have a laugh.
He never expected to win, for a start. At the awards rehearsal, Atalla, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, Martin Freeman and Lucy Davis were too busy " mucking about" on the red carpet to take in the run-through. By the time The Office beat Sex and the City to win best comedy series, and Gervais trumped Matt LeBlanc as best comedy actor, Atalla's heart was pounding so loudly that he could barely hear the audience's bemused mutterings.
"The Americans must have been absolutely furious," he says grinning, back home now and sitting in a Fitzrovia café. "I heard that when our names were read out, Clint Eastwood was seen mouthing, 'Who the f*** are they?'" Still, he achieved his ambition of visiting the set of 24, whose cast, like The Simpsons' Matt Groening, are huge fans.
Other than that, he did not share Gervais's appetite for schmoozing with the Hollywood honchos.
"You can get a meeting with anyone in LA when you've won," he says. "Your first reaction is to be massively flattered, but I was just thinking, this isn't my town. I'm not going to get seduced, having meetings that will probably go nowhere. I just love London too much." Besides, Atalla, 31, has a new challenge. Next Monday, he leaves the BBC to join Talkback, the company behind such comedy hits as I'm Alan Partridge, Smack the Pony and Da Ali G Show. His brief is to develop new talent.
WHAT, then, will be the next Office? "It's actually been a fairly quiet year for comedy, " he reflects. "I'm hearing lots of people quoting Little Britain - it's being treated a bit like The Fast Show was. After shows like The Office, which are quite downbeat and slow, and Phoenix Nights, people are ready to laugh again at men in wigs and silly catchphrases." He rates Channel 4's Peep Show as "brilliant", and is a fan of the US series Curb Your Enthusiasm. "I'm more attracted to the dark side, but I also laugh at stupid news stories - like that girl who had too much Sunny Delight and turned orange.
That was great!" He does not rule out working again with Gervais and Merchant, now writing "another observational comedy about a man who says exactly what he's thinking".
"But I've left the BBC, and they haven't, so there are no firm plans at the moment." He is relieved not to be working on NBC's own version of The Office, although Gervais and Merchant are consultants.
"It might work with American characters," he says delicately, "but what's amazing is the amount of people saying it's going to be a f***ing disaster.
The track record with US remakes of British shows is not great." He thinks the British version was such a hit because the characters were so recognisable. "They're a bit like The Spice Girls - you might identify with Baby or Sporty," he says.
"People say to me, 'I know a Brent or a Gareth', or 'I'm Dawn'. There was something for everyone. It also took head-on the reality of people's lives, never quite earning enough but still managing to have fun on the weekend." The show was not, he insists, cynical about the working lives portrayed. "While we all have our dreams, the reality is there isn't room for 100,000 illustrators or painters in Britain. But actually, a massive call centre has just opened up the road that needs 3,000 staff.
That's life. It doesn't mean everyone has failed." How much of The Office was his input? He pays full credit to "the boys" for the most accomplished script he has ever seen, but his budgeting role seems to have helped shaped Wernham Hogg's wider family. "The plan was to hire extras, but I worked out that it wouldn't cost much more to use actors. Out of that process grew characters who weren't in the original script. At some point in the first series, Ewan Macintosh started doing that very slow, eyesclosed delivery that was brilliant - and so grew the character of Big Keith." Atalla is often asked if he was the inspiration for Brenda, played in a wheelchair by Julie Fernandez.
After all, he uses one, having developed polio as a baby living in Egypt.
He came to London as a boy when his father's job moved. "I'm sure Ricky and Steve would have seen someone in a wheelchair before me," he says. "It was never intended to be anything more than a comic device." He, for instance, had never been abandoned at the top of a flight of stairs.
Although he once co-presented a Channel 4 series on disability, Freak Out, Atalla is no campaigner. "I don't know if that's a letdown to the disability-rights groups, but I don't think I've ever experienced prejudice because of it," he says. "Yes, I get patronised all the time - I've certainly been pulled away from tables in the pub - but it just washes off me. And while I've failed plenty of times, I can't say I failed because of my wheelchair." Today he lives - as he has for years - with his younger brother in King's Cross. He has done well financially out of the show, particularly DVD sales, but will say nothing more specific than "I can now afford curry sauce on my chips".
He did a degree in business and finance at Bath University. He then took some "wrong turns", including brief careers as a stockbroker and a currency trader. Then, at all of 22, he faced a "midlife crisis", decided to try television and found unpaid work on BBC Watchdog.
"You start off being a runner - but as I can't walk, let alone run, they never sent me out to get coffee," he recalls.
Instead, he worked as a researcher to Anne Robinson, and then Carol Vorderman, until he transferred temporarily to the comedy unit. He wrote scripts and sketches for radio.
"That was the first time in my life I thought I might actually be good at something," he says. He met Merchant, championed his training film about Gervais's "Seedy Boss" character ... and the rest is history.
It was Atalla who persuaded the BBC's head of comedy, John Plowman, to adopt and push The Office, but did he ever fear that the series might bomb? "I was terrified that the first episode began so slowly and drably that it would put people off," he admits. "But Ricky and Stephen held their nerve." Still, the initial audiences were worryingly low. "The BBC did some research, and the only thing that week that was less popular was women's bowls. Which I'm surprised about, because I love women's bowls."
But now it has proved such a success, was it right to end it for good? "Absolutely - the last episode tied things up so well. But maybe," he grins, "we should start a channel where Big Keith just eats Scotch eggs ..."
(Evening Standard, February 11 2004)
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