Ewen MacIntosh obituary: The Office star will be forever remembered as ‘Big Keith’ following death, aged 50

Ewen MacIntosh’s ‘Big Keith’ was the real power behind the desk in BBC noughties sitcom The Office - his role as the lewd, overweight, and painfully dumb accountant was a subtle but integral ingredient without which the show would not have been the same.

MacIntosh, who died on Wednesday, aged 50, was born on Christmas Day 1973 in Wales. He went on to study at the University of Edinburgh where he got involved in theatre. His first role in television would turn out to be the one he was best known for throughout his life, as he got the part of Keith on Ricky Gervais’s workplace sitcom The Office.

He since secured scores of bit parts in other TV shows and films, including Little Britain, Miranda, After Life, and The Lobster, but The Office was the only show on which he had a recurring role throughout its run.

MacIntosh’s role as Keith was one of a background figure, a fly on the wall during Tim and Dawn’s will-they-won’t-they relationship, David Brent’s squabbles with Neil and Jennifer, and Gareth’s many frustrations.

But the character of Keith was like the musical score for an epic film - if you get it right the audience almost won’t notice it’s there, but it is an integral piece that makes the project work and establishes tone.

So too with Big Keith. Most of the time he’s not in the shot, but when he drifts in to eat a scotch egg, or to tell Dawn that in America fanny means ‘your arse, not your minge’, again following with a bit of a scotch egg, his deadpan delivery and uncomfortable presence makes for some of the best scenes in British comedy.

It’s telling that MacIntosh was one of the few stars to make both Gervais and Martin Freeman break - in Office bloopers online you can see Gervais brought to racks of laughter during the appraisal scene in which MacIntosh gives the most deadpan delivery explaining that his biggest strength is eczema ‘on my feet’.

When shooting another scene with Freeman, MacIntosh explains with visual aids how intends to ‘move in’ on new girl Rachel, pumping his body grotesquely, and leaving Freeman in hysterics.

In the US version of the show Brian Baumgartner plays Big Keith’s counterpart Kevin Malone - the character’s Flanderization takes all the subtlety out of the role until he becomes a big dumb walking fat joke. Though Brian still does a fair job and is probably more popular among American audiences, MacIntosh had a certain something that meant even two decades on he is still remembered best as Big Keith.