Merchant: Slough was miffed by The Office

Emily Hall

The smash hit comedy was first broadcast on BBC2 in 2001 and followed the humdrum lives of staff at a fictional Slough paper company.
Merchant, who also wrote and directed with Gervais, said that Slough Borough Council got in touch after the first series aired to say it felt the show damaged the Berkshire town’s image.
The comedian, 50, told the Making A Scene with Matt Lucas and David Walliams podcast: “We were about to do the second series of The Office and we'd had a letter from someone at Slough council who said that they felt that we’d been a bit disparaging about Slough.
Refused
"And could we perhaps just have a scene, for instance, where David Brent looks out the window and says 'I have to say, they've done a wonderful job on the pedestrianisation of Slough city centre'." The pair refused.
The Office made a huge star of ...

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Daily Express (Digital) - 1 Issue, March 18, 2025

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