The Chair Company review – Angry office comedy packed with huge dumb laughs | television

MMeet Ron Trosper, a dedicated office worker in a small town in Ohio. Ron works for a company that builds shopping malls, the latest of which is the first in which Ron is appointed project leader, despite concerns from some of his bosses. Today is his big day. He’s giving a speech at the launch!

Ron is the creation of Tim Robinson, the former Saturday Night Live writer/performer who reinvented the American sketch show in 2019 with “I Think You Should Leave.” In a new half-hour, eight-episode series that begins as a workplace comedy before spilling over into mystery/thriller territory, his alter ego is Robinson, a different version of the textbook comic protagonist who must bear the burden of being the only sane man in every room. Ron truly struggles with the silliness, misfortune, foolishness, and selfishness of others, but he always manages to respond in a way that makes everyone around him conclude that he is the problem. Whereas Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm faced the world’s little annoyances in a rational but insensitive way, Ron combats them in a very irrational and sensitive way.

The opening scene sets the tone: Ron is completely annoyed by a waitress who obscenely hovers over the family table while his wife Barb (Lake Bell) tries to raise a toast to him. But by the time Ron had finished speaking to the young woman, he had gotten into a ridiculous argument over his refusal to accept that she never shopped in malls, and had forcefully insisted on boxing half a pickled egg so that he couldn’t take it home. Later, in the silent midnight, a disturbed Ron raises his head, troubled by something else now: “I swear I have the worst pillow in town!”

Robinson’s followers will be able to hear him saying this line in their heads, or the line where he exaggerates how amazing the restaurant’s food is: “This is amazing!!” Countless amateur comedians on YouTube and TikTok have borrowed this obsession, screaming out of the blue in tone, but without carefully defining character details as Robinson does. Everything his fans expect in a leading man is there as Ron, hunched over and forever hyperventilating, wanders from one embarrassment to another in his goofy suit, squinting through unflattering glasses, fingers crossed and askew.

Of course, Ron’s big show goes haywire, with a moment of well-executed raucous slapstick that sees our friend embark on a truly wild crusade against the manufacturer of throwaway office chairs. The overarching story, in which Ron’s obsessive persistence leads him to become embroiled in a bizarre conspiracy—there are hints of murders on the premises just in the way the narrative isn’t afraid to go wild, while director Andrew DeYoung occasionally casts Robinson as if he were in a 1970s paranoia thriller—may be more ambitious than a traditional office comedy, but they’re both perfect vehicles for gifts Robinson comedy.

Aside from embodying pure, sad rage in his performance, writer Robinson — along with regular collaborator Zach Kanin — is adept at making supporting or solo characters and situations a little more extreme than your average comedy might think appropriate. Whether the script needs a store assistant acting strangely, a café owner too busy to answer Ron’s questions, or an unhelpful customer service employee who knows nothing about the business they’re representing, Robinson and Kanin make sure the interaction has the unpredictability and intensity of a sitcom I Think You Should Leave. All comedy is basically about surprises and in The Chair Company, you can’t tell when the next huge stupid laugh will be. Ron’s colleagues are just the right amount of silliness, too, from the janitor who jealously guards his wheelbarrow to Ron’s nemesis, the kindly older co-worker who has stopped taking his career seriously and started blowing bubbles across the room during important meetings.

The test of whether The Chair Company is great or very good will be Robinson’s ability to sustain himself across a longer, more narrative-oriented format. Episodes of his funny and exhausting show lasted only 15 minutes. There are positive early signs: Underneath all the mistakes there are subtle hints that Ron is behaving inappropriately as his two children grow up and he’s worried that he’s now too old to achieve anything, but we can see that his wife and children don’t agree that he’s a loser and that they’re his big accomplishment. Can Ron take Robinson to the next level? To borrow a phrase from one of the unanswered emails he sent to the meeting chairs: “I’m very much looking forward” to finding out.