Sam Baron’s ‘Office Royale’ Is a Scathing Corporate Satire That Will Keep You Guessing Until the Final Bang

I have to disagree with Greek storyteller Aesop in his warning that it is possible to have too much of a good thing as someone who’s revelled in covering Sam Baron’s trilogy of Amit Shah tragicomedies. These were all written and directed by Baron so I was most intrigued to see what he would do when realising comedy veterans Harry Kershaw and Chris Leask’s script Office Royale. Think Battle Royale but within the walls of Peep Show with pangs of romance and it’s still funnier than you’re imagining. Working with an assembly of brilliant British actors and a trusted crew Baron doesn’t disappoint and brings this acerbic, biting script to life. As it premieres today on DN, we chat about the daunting prospect of having so many characters to track at the same time, how he created a rough and ready aesthetic for the camerawork, and the bolder choices having a stunt coordinator on set offered him.

How did this script come into your hands?

I first saw Harry Kershaw performing in Lights Camera Improvise, a series of chaotic improv comedy shows in London and Edinburgh in about 2010. He made me cry with laughter, so it was no surprise when the same brilliant comedy troupe went on to create The Play That Goes Wrong, now the longest running comedy in the West End. Over a decade later, when I was directing Lady Brently’s End, Kirsty Mann suggested casting Harry as her deceased husband. I was thrilled to finally work with him and he delivered a cracking performance. After we wrapped, an email arrived with a new script he’d co-written with his devilishly clever Mischief Theatre pal Chris Leask. I read it immediately and was blown away.

Beyond the absurdity, I felt that Harry and Chris had written a razor-sharp satire about power, obedience, and late-stage capitalism run amok.

On the surface, Office Royale is a silly comedy about a group of colleagues who are forced to fight to the death. It’s fast, funny and facetious. But beyond the absurdity, I felt that Harry and Chris had written a razor-sharp satire about power, obedience, and late-stage capitalism run amok. It shows how quick we are to turn against each other when the chips are down, instead of uniting against the institutions that threaten us. And at its core, it’s a love story which invites us to believe in hope and humanity, then pulls the rug in a devastating way.

Were there any particular challenges that were inherent in bringing this action-packed story to screen?

I was daunted by the prospect of actually making it. I’d never had to track so many different characters in a film before, and it was my first time handling action sequences. I didn’t want to take any risks with safety, so I insisted on having a stunt coordinator, an on-set medic, and an extra day to shoot. Unfortunately, these demands inflated the budget, so it took us two years to raise the money. We were very lucky to have support from producers Nathan Craig (The Devil’s Harmony) and Gareth Tempest, executive producers Henry Shields and Pete Markey, and an amazing community of crowdfunder backers who made the shoot possible.

We definitely start with a lot more laughs (dark laughs) then it moves into the murkier territory and ultimate FUCK IT ALL. How did you bring us from the lighter and absurd to a bleaker reality?

A lot of that shape was already there in the writing, so credit to Harry and Chris really. We enhanced it by staying in looser mid-shots in the first half, often keeping the camera away from eyelines to leave ourselves distance to travel in the second half. As the stakes raise, and the personal relationships and betrayals come to the surface, we were able to use more direct emotional close-ups and twist the knife as the choices get gnarly!

The funniest tactic seemed to be to have the characters be totally deadpan about the heightened aspects around them.

The high-tech but low-fi juxtaposition, the palm-reading guns but an office not dissimilar to Mark’s from Peep Show and the style of The Office – how did you meld these into a coherent world?

I love genre mashups, and striking contrast is often great for comedy so after blending polite English etiquette with a sex party in The Orgy, I was excited to try combining the mundane world of an office with high-octane genre elements. And just like in The Orgy, the funniest tactic seemed to be to have the characters be totally deadpan about the heightened aspects around them as if having almost magical sci-fi guns is completely normal.

I immediately recognised a lot of the actors in here.

Harry and Chris were perfect for the lead roles, and we filled out the cast with an incredible array of British talent: Adrian Lukis (Pride and Prejudice), Verona Rose (Top Boy), Ellora Torchia (A Real Pain), Cormac Hyde-Corrin (Heartstopper), Emma Keele (The Gathering) – and of course, after making three short films with him, I had to get everyone’s favourite BAFTA Nominee Amit Shah in there. He came in for one afternoon and stole the show!

The shooting style has a rough and ready feel like The Office, we deliberately put basic zoom lenses on the ARRI Alexa.

For the crew, I turned to previous collaborators: my cinematographer Alistair Little (Big Ears), costume designer Lauren Miller (The Orgy), production designer Lucie Brooks Butler (Tall Dark and Handsome), make-up designer Jules Roman (Lady Brently’s End), and so many more. It felt reassuring to be surrounded by trusted allies as we headed into the shoot. We were being ambitious, but Alistair and I had a clear vision of exactly what we needed to capture. The shooting style has a rough and ready feel like The Office, we deliberately put basic zoom lenses on the ARRI Alexa, but our shots were meticulously planned so we could give the actors maximum time to play, knowing we were set up to get what we needed.

We all know there are key advantages to working with trusted collaborators, and the camera work and cinematography really make this tone hit. How were you able to plan the shoot with Alistair but also be rough and ready?

We had a numbered shot-list for exactly the setups we needed to get, which was essential because there are so many characters and eyelines to track, but we also had guidelines for the messy style. Things like “Don’t always set the camera up in the perfect position, make it have to work to find its target” and “Think how to open and close shots, can we come from a reaction onto someone else’s dialogue?”. The best moments were when we caught a perfect reaction during someone else’s shot, so we could tick off two setups from the list!

I’m always worried when things go well – that’s when complacency sets in.

The shoot itself was exhilarating. The cast seemed to have a great time, and armourer Ben Simmons was the star of the show as the guns fired and the blood splattered. I’m always worried when things go well – that’s when complacency sets in – so I think I probably looked extremely stressed as I kept my focus on making sure we got to the finish line. But after four adrenaline-filled days at London North Studios, the confetti cannons fired. We’d done it.

Planning for the final three and knowing who to follow and focus on, and for how long to bring the little love story together is perfection!

I loved the idea of an intense three-way stand-off at the end, with loyalties constantly shifting, and I knew we’d need to track those three characters the most carefully through the whole film, so we could feel connected to them and invested in who might triumph. I’m a sucker for romance, it’s my favourite stuff to shoot, so when I first read the script and realised the whole thing was kind of a secret love story, I suggested we go back and sprinkle extra little moments of chemistry between them earlier. I wish we could have slipped even more of that stuff into the first half, but there was so much other material to pack in, we had to be very light-touch with it. I love the way it simmers, then pops!

I’m currently deep in my obsession with Mike White and all things The White Lotus and, alongside some not-dissimilar themes, the sound immediately brought me there. Was this a happy accident?

Don’t shoot me, but I haven’t actually seen The White Lotus! I know, I know, I must watch it. People actually said the same thing about the score in Tall Dark and Handsome reminding them of that show, I guess I have similar instincts for the power of primal music and sound design to deliver emotion, tension and comedy all at once. With composer Thom Robson, we kept daring each other to get weirder and wilder with the palette to see how far we could push it. We knew the emotional beats we needed to hit, but we wanted to take risks in how we got there. The trickiest aspect of the edit was choosing which characters from our large ensemble to follow at different moments, and also balancing the tone so that the audience feel they have permission to laugh. Music helped a lot with that Thom ended up taking audio of me gasping and grunting, which he wove into a weird melodic tapestry.

We kept daring each other to get weirder and wilder with the palette to see how far we could push it.

I respect you for knowing what safety procedures you wanted in place. What was the advantage of working with a stunt coordinator?

Honestly, it wasn’t much of a choice, I was very aware that I didn’t have the necessary experience to tell actors how to hurl themselves around safely, so it would have been bananas for me to attempt that. But the unexpected bonus was all the creativity and fresh ideas they brought to the table. We were able to be bolder than I would have thought to be and found funnier ways to throw people around than I would have come up with alone. I always encourage my collaborators to share their most mischievous suggestions, they might not all work, but when they do, you can steal the credit.

I know the film went down a treat with audiences how did you find the reception?

I was curious to see how a film like this would be received – would it be seen as too violent, or too dark? Would audiences embrace the absurdity and chaos? We were very happy to premiere at the Oscar-qualifying Flickers Rhode Island film festival, and to follow that up with a year of wild raucous screenings around the world: from HollyShorts in LA, to Ireland, France, and beloved home-turf festivals like Aesthetica. Now we’re excited to release the film online so it can be seen by a wider audience. We’ve got an inkling that there might be a fun way to adapt it into a TV series, so we’re keen to see how it lands with new viewers. If you watch the film, leave a comment with your review!

So Sam, what’s next and how are other projects developing?

My main focus lately has been on TV and feature film projects. As I’ve made so many short films now, I feel very ready to tell stories on a bigger canvas. It’s amazing to have been so embraced by audiences (IRL and online), festival programmers and development execs, and now to have major broadcasters and financiers paying attention and seeing the potential for taking our process to the next level. I hope there’s more I can say on that in the near future. I just love telling stories and being creative with lovely people, so I’ll keep doing that for as long as people keep watching.