Cult British comedy The Office to make long-awaited debut on Czech TV

Czech TV viewers are in for something of a comedy treat this evening as the cult British TV show The Office makes its debut on Czech Television. The programme - a mock documentary set in an office in Slough, England - has won a string of international awards and has been shown in dozens of countries around the world. But only now, six years after it first appeared on the BBC, is the programme - called "Kancl" in Czech - being shown here.

Photo: www.czech-tv.cz

For millions of people in Britain and abroad that music conjures up a host of images - a humdrum office building in a dreary satellite town, people sitting at their desks performing meaningless tasks - but most of all a slightly overweight man with a goatee beard and a tie.

The Office follows the fortunes of Wernham-Hogg paper merchants, and its irritating, obsequious, politically-incorrect and frankly tragic boss David Brent. "A friend first, a boss second", Brent - played by the show's co-creator Ricky Gervais - spends most of the time playing to the camera, with a series of lame jokes, hackneyed impressions and ill-chosen remarks.

Photo: www.czech-tv.cz

David Brent: (on phone)

"I'm seeing you Sunday, for my sins...how is Elaine? She left you yet?....yup....alright, I'll see you then."... she has left him, I forgot about that...

Ricky Gervais and co-writer Stephen Merchant have described their work as "the comedy of embarrassment", and the scenes are more painful than funny. It's also peppered with uniquely British cultural references and impenetrable slang. So will the Czech audience understand it? Mirek Bohac translated the first three episodes.

Photo: www.czech-tv.cz

"The thing is that it doesn't only work on the language level. These embarrassing situations, you can also see them happening on the screen, which helps. Sometimes things that sound awkward in English, and it's funny, may not come across into Czech directly. So it is difficult to translate embarrassing things in such a way that they actually stay embarrassing but come across as funny at the same time, which is how it's supposed to work in the English original I think."

Photo: www.czech-tv.cz

The Office - which saw two series and a pair of Christmas specials - as been shown in more than 80 countries and has been acclaimed as the most influential comedy of the decade. But will it work here? Other British comedies such as Monty Python and Blackadder have won cult status, but the Office has the major drawback - a drawback to Czech audiences at least - of being subtitled, in a country where almost all foreign TV imports are dubbed.

However in a rapidly transforming society, where - for urban Czechs at least - exchanging gossip over the water cooler is increasingly becoming a part of day-to-day life, David Brent and his cringeworthy attempts to be popular with his staff might very well strike a chord.