The Office Australia: trailer
First look at the managing director and staff of Aussie packaging company Flinley Craddick.
- Published by David Knox
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Prime Video has now released a trailer for the Australian adaptation of The Office which will premiere in October.
The comedy series is the thirteenth version of the global hit and has the first-ever female led in Felicity Ward (Time Bandits, Wakefield, The Inbetweeners 2).
Hannah Howard (Ward) is the managing director of packaging company Flinley Craddick. When she gets news from Head Office 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 of Flinley Craddick indulge her and must endure Hannah’s outlandish plots as they work toward the impossible targets that have been set for them.
The cast also includes 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), Josh Thomson (How to Please a Woman, Young Rock), Jonny Brugh (Thor: Love and Thunder, What We Do in the Shadows), Susan Ling Young (Reckoning, Hungry Ghosts), Raj Labade (Appetite), Lucy Schmidt (The Pledge), Zoe Terakes (Talk To Me, Nine Perfect Strangers), Pallavi Sharda (The Twelve), Claude Jabbour (Last King of the Cross, Stateless) with Susie Youssef (Deadloch, Rosehaven), Justin Rosniiak (Mr Inbetween, Last King of the Cross), Carlo Ritchie (Mikki vs the World), Rick Donald (Population 11, Wentworth), and Chris Bunton (Relic, Wolf Like Me) in guest roles.
It was over 20 years ago that the world was introduced to the wonderfully bleak mockumentary world of The Office, created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. While many aspects of the workplace have changed since then, especially post 2020, the physical office is a timeless precinct for comedy, and one that will never tire an audience as long as the characters are authentic, familiar, faced with relatable dilemmas, and, most importantly, entertaining and hilarious. This universal appeal has seen the BAFTA- and Golden Globe-winning cult comedy remade for audiences around the world, including France, Canada, Chile, Israel, India, the Middle East, and Poland, where a third season has just been announced. This Australian version is the thirteenth adaptation.
The eight-part Australian Amazon Original series The Office is co-produced by BBC Studios Australia & New Zealand, Bunya Entertainment, and Amazon MGM Studios, and is based on a BBC Studios format. The Office was developed for Australia by writers Julie De Fina (Aftertaste) and Jackie van Beek (The Breaker Upperers, Nude Tuesday) with the pair also serving as executive producers. Kylie Washington (Return to Paradise) is executive producer with lead producer Sophia Zachariou (Ladies in Black, The Moth Effect) and producer Linda Micsko (The Letdown, Laid). Van Beek also serves as set-up director (Time Bandits, What We Do in the Shadows, Wellington Paranormal) alongside directors Christiaan Van Vuuren (Bondi Hipsters, A Sunburnt Christmas) and Jesse Griffin (Educators) who is also a writer on the series.
All episodes Friday 18 October on Prime Video.
18 Responses
Always want to give Australian shows a go, but Utopia and Fisk do the genre so well and they are original ideas, it was always going to cop criticism. Huge shoes to fill but I think perhaps the office ship has sailed.
This looks like a really bad version of Utopia. On the PrimeAus Instagram account the positive comments were by low-grade influencers (ie bought) and bots, it really stinks.
How is that claim verified though?
If you click the accounts you can tell. Alternatively just look at the night and day differences between Youtube and IG comments sections..
Bingo. You can see the followers for the private accounts are similar numbers (around 200) and the influencers are around 1-2k followers. There is the odd nice comment from associates of the involved actors but as the Brendos said, all these positive comments are the complete opposite to other platforms. It is getting roasted on Facebook.
Pathetic what a suprise they gender swapped some parts I only got through half the trailer not funny cringe worthy .
they would have been better just playing Are you being served in Australia AT Least that was funny
whos the fool that said yes to this
Its the Raygun ray of aussie tv no more please!!!!!
Not having been a regular viewer of either the US or UK version, I actually enjoyed the scenarios in the trailer. Best of luck to all involved, and I hope that you prove the negative commentators here wrong.
Calling it right now… There won’t be a second series.
Look, I’ll give it a go but the trailer doesn’t excite me. I don’t want to be reminded of US characters all the time though. This is the Jim character, he does the look to camera. This is the Dwight character, they are now female… etc
Sorry I want to give it a go but after the preview …… still won’t ……
It’s been slammed on social, I was hoping for better here.
It is a 2 minute trailer and everyone just wants to slam it.
I actually think it looks half decent and will defo give it a go. The Melbourne Cup episode could be extremely funny!!
Lame, as expected. It looks like any run-of-the-mill workplace sitcom, and those are a dime a dozen these days.
What elevated the original series was its mundane tone where the actors played it “straight”, and one could even be fooled into thinking that they were watching an actual documentary.
This looks even more obnoxiously farcical than the otherwise (mostly?) tolerable US version. I’m almost surprised that they didn’t throw in canned laughter by how over-the-top all of the performances were. I guess they weren’t confident that their scripts were clever enough to perform without the boisterous histrionics.
There’s potential – but I almost wish it wasn’t call “The Office”
Whether you prefer British Gervais version, or the American Carrell version, our version with Ward has massive shoes to fill to live up to The Office name.
Looks awful, I wont bother.
The answer is why and why hire such a weak lead. This show depends on the strength of the leads comedic and dramatic talents.
“the first-ever female led in Felicity Ward” – I never watched, but didn’t Catherine Tate star in the USA version at some stage, replacing Steve Carell when he left the show?
I believe she started as a new secondary character.
After Carell left, there wasn’t really a replacement in terms of lead – it became more of an ensemble show. Ed Helmes/Andy became the manager for the branch for some of the final seasons, but he wasn’t the Center of the story like Carell/Micheal was.
She joined the cast permanently halfway through the penultimate season and stuck it out to the end, but she was only a regular, not one of the leads (she wasn’t in the opening credit sequence). Which was disappointing, because I think she would have been a good fit as a lead, and perhaps ironically so given the show’s British roots.