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Actor Matthew Wright does that dance as David Brent in the opera version of The Office which is to be performed at Proud Camden |
Fact! The Office all set to become operatic hit
EVEN with all his hubris and inflated self-worth, David Brent probably never imagined he would one day be talked of in the same tones as Don Giovanni or Rigoletto.
Ricky Gervais’s fictional boss from The Office is to get a promotion of sorts next week when the character appears in an opera version of the hit BBC comedy series at Proud Camden in Stables Market.
Classically trained baritones will attempt to articulate the phrases “Brentmeister General” and “vis a vis you have not yet passed your forklift drivers test” at the one-off The Office – The Opera at the Stables Market venue.
Verdi would have blanched at the challenge – how do you score Gareth’s stapler being set in jelly? But not 25-year-old composer Anne Chmelewsky from West Hampstead.
She created the opera as a way to exact revenge on a “pretentious” classical music course she attended at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2006.
“I didn’t enjoy it so I decided to take the piss a bit,” said Ms Chmelewsky. “For one of my modules, I thought of the most ridiculous thing I could do as an opera.”
But it did not end there. The co-writer of The Office series, Stephen Merchant, heard about the show and approached the company of music students and friends about working on a sketch for Comic Relief earlier this year.
A series of online documentaries showing Ms Chmelewsky “going a bit mad” as she tried to realise her vision raised £3,500 to stage a shorter version of the show at Lauderdale House in March.
At Proud the cast will be backed by a professional orchestra.
When Brent cries rape during a customer service roleplay session he steals the conductor’s baton.
The Office joins a list of famous talkies recently converted to song. Musical versions of Shrek, Ikea and Jade Goody’s life story are all doing the rounds or are in the offing.
Matthew Wright, who plays David Brent, is about to start a prestigious opera singing course at the Guildhall. In the meantime, he will be squeezing into a fat suit to play the puffed up office despot.
Mr Wright said: “We try to recreate those awkward moments and make them understandable to a theatrical audience.”
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