‘The Smoking Room’ Is a Brilliant British Office Comedy

The two-season comedy “The Smoking Room” (on the Roku Channel) premiered in Britain in 2004, and in some ways it can feel even older: A designated indoor cigarette-smoking lounge at an office? Nary a phone in sight, and only glancing mentions of the internet? Next you’re going to tell me they’re rendering tallow and writing out the Bible by hand.

But “Smoking,” written and created by Brian Dooley, has a fascinating timelessness in its format. The show is set in a dingy break room and almost never leaves it — think “oops, all bottle episodes.” It’s a single-camera comedy, but it isn’t a mockumentary; this alone makes its rhythms more like a stage play’s than a sitcom’s. That’s heightened by the fact that there is no score, and many episodes unfold essentially in real time.

Its true TV self comes through with the show’s episodic sensibilities, in which the same things always happen. The coffee machine is always on the fritz; Annie (Debbie Chazen) always bums a smoke but never brings one; Heidi (Emma Kennedy) always mentions her drippy husband. Barry (Jeremy Swift) is always doing a shabby job with the crossword puzzle, and Robin (Robert Webb) always knows both the answer to the clue and some other shred of wisdom. Episodes don’t feel repetitive, though; instead, the quirks land as a clever ritual. Every smoke break is different, but every smoke break is the same.

There is no major plot to speak of, and almost nothing happens-happens, so “The Smoking Room” relies mostly on dialogue and character. In some ways it is a show carved in relief or composed only of scraps — it has the patter and inconsequence of a cold open but for a half-hour, until the shape of what has not been said is as stark as what has. Some characters never appear at all, their arcs instead fleshed out fully through everyone else’s gossip. Entire love stories play out this way.

The obvious comparison here is the British “Office,” but that show feels cacophonous, almost explosive in comparison — a parade versus a snow globe. Plenty of British comedies can be described as being about restraint, but “The Smoking Room” takes this to a funny, brilliant extreme.