4. He studied comedy classics as a child

Stephen grew up watching a golden age of television comedy. His dad introduced him to Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers and they used to watch Fawlty Towers, Monty Python and Last of the Summer Wine together. “I would tape TV comedy shows and play them back,” says Stephen. “Sometimes I would even transcribe them and write out the script. I remember writing out the script of an episode of Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em which is an odd one to choose because it’s mainly Frank Spencer falling over and I don’t know what I thought I could learn from that one. I thought that maybe there was some sort of formula or some secret code or some way of unlocking the comedy secrets of the people I admired.”

I used to joke with him: ‘Open your mouth wider, Gervais, we can’t hear the words you’re saying!’

5. He was a mobile DJ in his youth

In his days as a mobile DJ he and his partner couldn’t afford to buy all the records that people wanted to hear so they’d tape the songs off the radio and try to fade out before it reached the bit with the Radio 1 DJ talking over the track. One such much requested track was Prince’s Raspberry Beret, Stephen’s second choice for his desert island. He would like to take the opportunity to apologise to anyone whose wedding he ruined.

6. Stephen met Ricky Gervais when he applied for a job at a new radio station

He met Ricky Gervais in 1997. He sent in his CV to the newly launched radio station XFM and Ricky Gervais read it. Stephen says: “I always joke with him that it was probably on the top of the pile because he was a very lazy man, so he called me up for an interview because he had got a job somehow as the head of speech. That was absurd, particularly if you’ve heard him speak. It’s not that he’s not a good speaker, he's just not a refined speaker. I used to joke with him: ‘Open your mouth wider, Gervais, we can’t hear the words you’re saying!’”

7. He trained at the BBC

Initially he turned down a BBC training scheme because he was having so much fun with Ricky Gervais but having talked to his parents he called the BBC back and accepted the offer of a place on the trainee scheme. This is where he filmed what became The Office as one of his training projects. He learned radio and TV production and was sent to Nairobi to make a piece for the World Service.

8. What was the inspiration for The Office?

“At the time it didn’t feel like [producers] were doing anything different to what had gone before in the world of TV comedy,” says Stephen. “Things were still shot in front of a live audience, aside maybe for The Royle Family, and here comes a show that’s very dour and we used to joke that we’d drain the colour out of it so it looked like it was lying on the shelf at the BBC for years and they’d put it on to fill up some hours.”

9. How did they get such amazing guests to appear in Extras?

“We began to discover that these famous people were fans of The Office,” explains Stephen. “The idea that Samuel L. Jackson had got the DVD of The Office and had put it on one night in his slippers with his cocoa and had thought it was funny and was willing to do a show with us was extraordinary.”

10. He’s never met his all time comedy hero, John Cleese, but his parents have…

“My parents got into cruises as they got older and they were on a cruise ship from New York to London and John Cleese was on board and they were hoping to get a book signed for me. They asked somebody on the cruise if there was any way they could get it signed.”

On his parents return they played Stephen the camcorder footage they’d made of the voicemail message John Cleese had left on the phone in their cabin: “‘Hello there Mr and Mrs Merchant, I’d be more than happy to sign your book. I was just wondering is your Stephen Merchant the same Stephen Merchant who collaborated with Ricky Gervais on The Office? Because I’m an enormous fan and please pass on my best regards.’ I don’t feel I need to meet him now. That’s all I needed.”