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Gervais back with new comedy

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Ricky Gervais has collaborated as script editor for new comedy 'PhoneShop'
Ricky Gervais has focused his comic eye on the workplace once more - more than eight years after The Office first became a hit.

In his latest project Gervais, who collaborated as script editor, moves from the Slough paper company Wernham Hogg to a mobile phone outlet.

PhoneShop focuses on the everyday lives of shop staff, drawing on real-life characters working in similar stores across the country.

In its first episode, which airs on Friday night, the sitcom shows "new man" Christopher - played by Tom Bennett - on his one-day trial struggling to fill the shoes of his predecessor, super salesman "Little" Gary Patel, who has been arrested over a fight with the lads from Top Shop.

The graduate is faced with the prospect of adapting to a different world where street savvy is integral to survival on "High Street UK".

After this comes the challenge of fitting in with the rest of the team.

Reading-born Gervais put his name to the show after being sent a rough cut by writer and producer Phil Bowker, at the independent production company Talkback Thames, who felt PhoneShop's manager could be seen as a version of The Office's David Brent.

Gervais is understood to have been impressed with what he saw and decided to get involved in the project.

The show's pilot episode was so well received that a series has already been commissioned by E4 for 2010, although it has yet to be seen by the public.

Bowker said he had drawn on his own mobile phone shop experiences to create the sitcom - an attempt to "negotiate" himself a better deal.

"We've all been in these shops and walked out with a phone that we didn't want or an airtime plan that we didn't understand," the producer said.

PhoneShop features a relatively unknown cast - Andrew Brooke from Pulling, Emma Fryer of Home Time, Martin Trenaman of The Inbetweeners, and Tom Bennett, who also starred in Pulling.

It will be screened on Channel 4 at 10.05pm.

Gervais has recently completed his latest film Cemetery Junction - a 1970s comedy based on three upstart professional men working at an insurance company.

© Press Association

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