Stephen Merchant

Stephen Merchant

Date of birth: 24-11-1974
Stephen Merchant was born into a middle-class family in Bristol, the son of a nursery nurse and an insurance salesman. He studied film and literature at the University of Warwick, where he began his radio career in 1995, hosting a comedy show on the student station.

He began stand-up at Bristol's Comedy Box club, recalling: ‘The first week I did really well. The second week I died on my arse.’ But her perservered, and made it to the finals of the 1998 Daily Telegraph Open Mic awards.

He continued to work in radio, at first as a breakfast DJ on Radio Caroline before joining XFM, where he started working with Ricky Gervais. He left in 1998 to join a production course with the BBC, but rejoined for a while following the success of The Office.

In 1999, he and Gervais made a Comedy Lab pilot for Channel 4 called Golden Years, about a fame-hungry office manager who goes on Stars In Your Eyes as David Bowie – an obvious precursor to The Office.

But it would take two more years before The Office hit BBC Two screens. As well as co-writing and co-directing it, Merchant appeared in the second of two series, in 2002, as Oggy, a friend of Gareth Keenan. The show won a ridiculous number of awards, including three best sitcom Baftas, a British Comedy Award for best new comedy and a Golden Globe for best comedy.

When The Office was sold to America's NBC network, Gervais and Merchant retained executive producer credits, and wrote a new episode, The Convict, which aired in November 2006.

The duo followed up The Office with Extras, which ran for two series and a Christmas special from 2005 and 2007. As well as co-writing the show, Merchant starred as incompetent agent Darren Lamb, which won him the British Comedy Award for Best TV Actor in 2006 and a Bafta for best comedy performance in 2008.

Alongside this, they recorded a series of podcasts with sidekick Karl Pilkington. The first series, which was free, broke all records for downloads. They then decided to start charging, which hit listening figures, but proved to be one of the few successful attempts to make any revenue from podcasts.

Other acting roles include the chef in Garth Marenghis's Darkplace in 2003, and cameo roles as a computer analyist in 24 and as a man who loses his swan in the 2007 film Hot Fuzz.

In 2002 Merchant directed another Comedy Lab called The Last Chancers, and in 2004, worked as a script associate on the Chris Morris and Charlie Brooker sitcom Nathan Barley.

In January 2007, he began a Sunday afternoon radio show on BBC 6 Music.

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The Outlaws

Review of Stephen Merchant's ensemble comedy

It’s a wonder no one thought of this before. Community service is a perfect premise for a sitcom: an opportunity to mix up characters from all walks of life in a situation they can’t get out of… at least not until their sentences are served.

What’s perhaps surprising given creator Stephen Merchant’s track record is what starts as a true-to-form affectionate character-led comedy turns into a grippingly suspenseful thriller, with more emphasis on the drama than the laughs.

Pre-credits we meet Rani a studious high-flyer who’s turned to shoplifting, apparently an act of thrill-seeking in rebellion against the smother of her overprotective parents. It’s a breakout role for Rhianne Barretto, delivering a compelling performance as an cocooned young woman suddenly exposed to a scary world beyond her experience, becoming the proxy for most viewers, too.

Her initially modest, suburban frame of reference is blown wide open – for better and for worse – through her friendship with Christian (Gamba Cole), who has been dragged into the criminal underworld on the estate where he lives, against his better judgement.

Barretto holds her own against a heavyweight cast, including the much-vaunted casting coup, Christopher Walken. He is of course perfect to play Frank,  the ‘funny, charming…lying thieving selfish old bastard who can never be trusted’ – who shows up out of the blue at the door of his daughter and granddaughter.

There are some obvious fault lines in the characters’ relationships. John, as played by Darren Boyd, is a reactionary middle-class white guy kicking back at the notion that you can’t say anything any more – his once-certain worldview crumbling as fast as his business empire – while Myrna is a veteran black rights activist, who’s wound up in this group doing up a community centre after one too many anti-police stunts. Merchant gently mocks both sides of the woke ‘war’.

The Office co-creator himself plays to type as a socially paralysed, painfully awkward, recently divorced lawyer, providing some of the most obvious comic relief, while Poldark’s Eleanor Tomlinson is the out-of-touch celeb apparently inspired by Naomi Campbell’s stint doing community service.

‘Everyone’s a type,’ says Rani surveying the group – which is certainly true, though Merchant provides depth in their backstories to make them more than the stereotypes they first appear. Certainly ‘outlaws’ is a strong, loaded term for this lot, who are not hardened criminals, but a more relatable collection of  folk who largely got caught up in bad circumstances. The original working title of The Offenders seems more accurate

Yet the menacing presence of the gang Christian becomes embroiled in provides a real sense of jeopardy, played out in several tensely directed scenes. And by the end of tonight’s episode the stakes have become so high, with so many tantalising narrative threads left hanging, that most viewers will be rightly hooked. Luckily, episode 2 is already on iPlayer.

• Interview with Stephen Merchant about The Outlaws

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Published: 25 Oct 2021

Stand Up Get Down

This charity gig was billed as Jessica Hynes’s first…
1/01/2008

Products

DVD (2013)
I Give It a Year

DVD (2010)
An Idiot Abroad

DVD (2010)
Cemetary Junction

DVD (2008)
Extras: The Special

Past Shows

Misc live shows

Stand Up Get Down


Agent

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