The Smoking Room
The Smoking Room is a British television sitcom written by Brian Dooley, who won a BAFTA for the series in 2005. The first series, consisting of eight episodes, was originally transmitted on BBC Three between 29 June and 17 August 2004. The Christmas Special was first transmitted on 21 December 2004. A second series of eight episodes began airing on 26 July 2005.
The first series, including the Christmas Special, was released on DVD by the BBC on 6 February 2006 and on CD in a four-disc set on 4 April 2005. The second series was released on 16 October 2006; a boxed set containing both series was released on the same date.
A third series was not commissioned; in an interview for the BBC News website on 30 November 2006, Robert Webb said in passing, "...there is no more Smoking Room". England's smoking ban, which prohibits indoor smoking in workplaces, came into force on 1 July 2007, as a result of which internal smoking rooms, like the one in which the series is set, became illegal.
Plot and analysis
At the time the series was made, smoking was prohibited in the offices of most British companies, but there was often a room in the building that smokers could use during work hours.The series is entirely set in the smoking room in the basement of the offices of a fictitious company. Most of the people seen in the smoking room are workers in the building.
Room B209 is L-shaped and contains office-style tables and chairs, and a hot drinks machine which often malfunctions. It has two doors that lead to the same corridor and is drably decorated in a dull yellow with signs of water damage on one wall. Company related notices adorn the walls, and old furniture and office equipment is stacked in the corner. Only occasional glimpses of the outside world are seen through the room's misted glass.
Although each episode contains a distinct storyline, the series is fundamentally character and dialogue-driven. Each episode's story is generally self-contained, though there are some ongoing story threads, such as the gradual revelation of Robin's sexuality to the other characters and his unrequited infatuation with Ben from the post room.
Theme music
The theme music for the programme is two different versions of "Close to Me" by The Cure, used without the vocals. This theme was not used in episodes screened in New Zealand and Australia on UK.TVMain characters
There are ten main characters though not all appear in each episode. Most of the characters are somewhat disaffected with their lives and jobs. The smoking room is an oasis where they can relax, indulge and shut out the rest of the world. Due to a rule devised by Clint, discussion of work-related matters is forbidden in the smoking room, though there are some brief work-related discussions. Some characters spend long stretches in the room, with some present for most or all of a thirty-minute episode. The occasional non-smoker also drops by the room.There is a general camaraderie between several of the smokers.
Annie ([Debbie Chazen])
Annie is 29 and works in the graphics department. She considers herself rather 'New Age' and sometimes talks about past-life experiences. She will accept theories from anywhere, including a souvenir mug with a picture of Vishnu on it, and a self-help CD she listened to, but didn't buy, in the middle of HMV. She can be very overemotional and attention-seeking and is always telling dramatic stories about herself which seem unlikely, although when Sally challenges her about her claim to have been trapped in a photo booth for three hours Annie is easily able to provide photographic evidence.She is constantly looking for a boyfriend and is prepared to go to extreme lengths to retain one. She seems to have the busiest sex life of anyone in the room but hasn't managed to find love. Her choice of men is misguided. One married man she dated sent private photographs he took of her to a pornographic magazine; it is implied that Barry saw these pictures. She had a liaison with Clint at Lucy Wu's party, which we learn about in Episode Three, and in Episode Five she buys him some chocolates for Valentine's Day, but this appears to be a passing fancy. She flirts outrageously with Janet's nephew, Dominic, in Episode Ten.
Annie is always sponging cigarettes, change for the drinks machine and food from the other characters, occasionally using emotional blackmail to increase her chances of success. She is prepared to eat almost anything, including a half-eaten salad dusted with cigarette ash and a mauled unwrapped Toffo. Despite the fact that she smokes somebody's cigarettes in every episode, usually Sally's, she doesn't regard herself as a smoker.
She considers herself to be an artist and, although she says that she became a graphic designer because she likes designing posters, she finds her job unfulfilling. In Episode Ten she arrives with a collection of homemade ashtrays which she tries to sell to her colleagues, despite the fact that the paint is highly flammable.
Barry ([Jeremy Swift])
Barry is divorced and approaching 40. He is neurotic and obsessive, suffering from many phobias some verging on the ridiculous, although he is oddly unfazed by a real crisis. He seems bumbling and insecure, though his portrait from 1987 shows him as somewhat fashionable and confident. We learn that he joined the company as a graduate of Oxford Polytechnic and that Sharon was his secretary. They had a tentative romance which foundered when Barry got the venue of a date wrong; it takes them twenty years to discuss the misunderstanding. Sharon and Barry remain barbed and confrontational with each other.Barry blames circumstance and others for his lack of career progression, but there is evidence he is not very attentive to his job. He dislikes children – including his own nieces – and family life in general, and makes little attempt to hide this. He has nothing good to say about his first wife, Pamela, and whenever we hear of his attempts to seduce other women they are always failures.
Barry is usually seen attempting to solve the day's crossword, and although he considers himself something of a crossword expert his answers are often ludicrous and Robin solves many of the clues for him.
Clint ([Fraser Ayres])
Clint is the 23-year-old maintenance man. Although he genuinely loves his job, which he considers to be the most important one in the company, he spends most of his time thinking about other things, like whether or not dogs who have jobs get jealous of pets.He has a very relaxed approach to life, even to the point of suspending his attempt to repair a lift full of people in order to smoke a roll-up. He doesn't seem to be much good at his job when he does get around to it. He has a tendency to lose ladders, one of which trips up and nearly kills someone. We also learn that his neglect of a loose floor tile in the smoking room has put one of his colleagues into a coma. He is constantly thwarted in his attempts to fix the drinks machine and has consequently become highly emotional in his dealings with it. On one occasion it is fixed easily by Monique by removing a squashed cup from the mechanism.
He often uses street slang and does an Ali G-style 'snap' when something amuses or impresses him. He is a fan of conspiracy theories as well as admitting to smoking marijuana.
He is generally concerned for the other characters' well-being, often telling them to 'chill' or hugging them when something bad happens. He is the friendliest towards Sharon of all the smokers, even calling her 'Shazza'. He tends to see the good in everyone, to the extent that he was once sexually molested in a park and believed the man's story that he was holding his penis in order to tell his fortune.
Clint slept with Annie once, sent Lucy Wu into spasms by kissing her, and his biggest ambition is to have a threesome before he is 25. He seems to later be dating Lucy Wu for most of the second series, and she has a pregnancy scare, where it is revealed that Clint's father ran away when he was born. We don't know if Clint stays with Lucy after the scare.
Gordon ([Mike Walling])
Gordon debuts in episode six and features in a further four episodes. Initially a non-smoker who never knew the smoking room existed he is an unwelcome and disliked colleague prone to be lecherous, aggressive, insecure and overly-ambitious. Gordon's unpopularity is exemplified when his health takes a turn for the worse in the penultimate episode and his colleagues generally react with indifference, self-interest and a dithering lack of concern, as demonstrated by Sally; "God knows what we'd do in a real emergency".Heidi ([Emma Kennedy])
Heidi debuts in episode five, when she returns from maternity leave. She is 35, married to Keith and mother to baby Dane.Heidi is very 'mumsy' and constantly refers to her seemingly idyllic domestic situation, to the near-universal annoyance of the other characters. It is clear that her home life is not as perfect as she believes. She repeats highly critical comments Keith has made about her as though they were kindly although she occasionally seems doubtful about his more extreme political views. He hates foreigners, is homophobic, thinks the police should be armed with laser guns that can paralyse and believes Heidi is more than enough female influence for his son. He also encourages Heidi to act out his bizarre sexual fantasies to make their sex life more interesting for himself.
Heidi is a non-smoker and her visits to the smoking room are motivated by her desire to tell everyone about the latest developments in her life, yet she takes very little interest in anyone else's, often having a smug, patronising air about her when she does interact in conversations with the others. However, she is desperate for friends and in episode ten we learn that her imaginary friend, Buttercup, was cruel to her and soon went off to be imaginary friends with another child. Heidi didn't have the imagination to invent another one. This early disappointment might explain why she is oblivious to the rudeness of others and why she is determined to have company at any cost.
In episode seventeen, she reveals that she is pregnant with her second child, to the slight annoyance of Janet and Sharon, although the other characters express their joy at her news when they realise it will mean another lengthy maternity absence.