‘The Office’ Australia shows female David Brent in first trailer

Comedian Felicity Ward stars as managing director Hannah Howard

The first trailer for the Australian remake of The Office has arrived – and it features a female equivalent of David Brent.

The adaptation of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s mockumentary comedy series is set to arrive on Amazon Prime on October 18. Felicity Ward stars as the franchise’s first-ever female lead, playing Hannah Howard, the managing director of the Flinley Craddick packaging company.

It is the 13th version of The Office around the world to date, after the huge success of the US version, starring Steve Carell as Michael Scott, which ran for nine seasons from 2005 to 2013.

In the new clip, Hannah – the equivalent of Gervais’ David Brent – tries (and fails) to win over her employees at the Sydney-based firm with an attempt at charisma, vision and girlboss energy.

She is not the only character in the remake whose original counterpart was male – Edith Poor plays receptionist, front desk executive and productivity manager Lizze, the equivalent of Dwight/Gareth role. The show also features sales rep Nick (Steen Raskopoulos as Tim/Jim role) and Greta (Shari Sebbens as Pam/Dawn).

Check out the trailer below:

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Fans of the original The Office seemed unconvinced by the Australian version when it was announced, with some pointing out that it’s potentially redundant given the existence of Utopia, an Australian comedy series that has been running for five seasons and is set in the working life of the office of a government infrastructure organisation.

Now the trailer is out, the consensus remains the same. “First Raygun and now an Australian version of The Office, hasn’t Australia suffered enough,” one X/Twitter user wrote.

“I love Australian TV but the Aus version of the office just seems shite and pointless the reason why the UK and later the US ones worked because it felt real, and it didn’t try too hard to be funny. They both had amazing casts with great chemistry, this just feels forced,” said another.

In addition to the Australian version, a new spin-off from the US version of The Office is in the works, starring Domhnall Gleeson. It will feature a new set of characters set in the same universe, and in June, Carell confirmed he would not appear in the show.

The official teaser for the show states: “The documentary crew that immortalised Dunder Mifflin’s Scranton branch is in search of a new subject when they discover a dying historic Midwestern newspaper and the publisher trying to revive it with volunteer reporters.”