Mackenzie Crook

Although BBC2 produced many landmark comedy series, The Office was notable for establishing a new genre - the mockumentary. Fictional, but filmed as if it were a fly-on-the-wall reality TV show, it was written by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant and gave us the grotesque (but inst­antly recognisable) character of David Brent, the socially awkward, yet self-important boss from hell presiding over a workplace in Slough which sucks the soul out of its employees. The Office reinvigorated the flagging British sitcom format. A touching blend of egotism, self-delusion and desperation, Brent is an incredible comic creation, but the show's other characters: Tim (Martin Freeman), who is all-too aware of the pointlessness of his work; Gareth (Mackenzie Crook), the self-inflated assistant regi­onal manager and the butt of Tim's jokes; and Dawn - the secretary with the fit but selfish boyfriend - were all beautifully drawn. It was the first British comedy to win a Golden Globe.

The gently eccentric seaside comedy returns for another stroll along the prom at Weston-super-Mare, stopping off for rock cakes and merry banter at the social hub that is Carol's café. Morris dancers, living statues and musician Richard's slow-burning pash for reluctant small-town girl Sarah (Ralf Little and Michelle Terry as the reticent lovebirds) are on the saucy postcards, the plot stirred up by the arrival of Robert Glenister (Hustle) and Mackenzie Crook (The Office) as surprising new characters.

Office star Mackenzie Crook starring in The Cafe

Pirates Of The Caribbean star Mackenzie Crook is swapping World's End for the UK beach resort of Weston-super-Mare.

Mackenzie Crook up for book award

British actor Mackenzie Crook, best known for playing Gareth in The Office, has been shortlisted for this year's Waterstones Children's Book Prize.

We're back in Katherine Jakeways's fictional small market town, Waddenbrook. Sheila Hancock acts as all-seeing narrator of the everyday lives of its inhabitants. Jan is returning from a big trip abroad, and agonising. Esther and Jonathan are still trying for a baby. Jan is longing for Jonathan. At the supermarket there's a special on choc ices and the manager is still sharing his longing for his ex-wife over the Tannoy. Marvellous cast (Mackenzie Crook and Penelope Wilton among them) juggle exactly with such elements of homely surreality.

Sky Arts is doing its bit to promote drama, launching a series of Chekhov Comedy Shorts to celebrate the playwright's 150th anniversary.

The opener, A Reluctant Tragic Hero, sticks Johnny Vegas and Mackenzie Crook in a lavishly dressed but irredeemably stagey drawing room set, where the topic under discussion is domestic purgatory. Well, Vegas not so much discusses as rants, while Crook fills half an hour with an admirably extensive set of facial responses.

While entertaining enough, the play never quite takes off.

Vegas, for all his energy and charisma, never appears comfortable with the text. Also, somebody should have told Chekhov that the play's pay-off gag is a bit on the weak side.

Johnny Vegas is perhaps someone you would not automatically associate with Anton Chekhov. Likewise Mackenzie Crook. But here they are in Chekhov: Comedy Shorts (Sky Arts 2). In this first one, A Reluctant Tragic Hero, Vegas plays Tolkachov, a man at the very end of his tether, fed up with running tedious shopping errands for his family. Crook is Murashkin, Tolkachov's mate, who should be - tries to be - sympathetic, but then gets it all wrong and adds to poor Tolkachov's problems.

And hey, it works. Vegas gets to do what he's designed to do - make a lot of noise and be miserable (he has tragedy built into his features). Crook gets to say not very much, be a bit gormless, and have a long, hollow face. Which suits him fine, too. Nineteeth-century Russia could easily be 21st-century anywhere; I guess that - the continuing relevance - is what makes Chekhov a dude. Hey, who said this column can't do serious literary criticism?

Anyway, they're quite good fun, and there are more to come, with other unlikely Chekhovian actors including Steve Coogan, Julia Davies and Mathew Horne. Bring 'em on.

Another Sky Arts project that will have them scuffing their Hush Puppies with envy over at BBC4: a series of Anton Chekhov's one-act comic plays, revived to celebrate his 150th birthday and featuring some of Britain's best comedy actors.

Tonight it's A Reluctant Tragic Hero, starring Johnny Vegas in overdrive as the put-upon Tolkachov, a man given so many errands to run by his wife and friends that he's come to borrow a gun from his friend Murashkin (Mackenzie Crook).

Nothing gets in the way of Vegas's boiling monologues: with a one-room set, painted backdrop, bright lighting, straightforward translation and no music, it's like a 1970s production and all the better for it.

Video preview: Chekhov Comedy Shorts

In this clip, Johnny Vegas explains to Mackenzie Crook the pleasures of settling down for a good night's kip, and what it's like to have that peace shattered by one thing in particular...