Sally Owen

Sally Owen is the level-headed personal assistant to Ian Fletcher, Head of Deliverance for the 2012 Olympics organizing committee. Amid meetings that go nowhere and colleagues who talk in circles, she keeps the diary, keeps the peace, and keeps a straight face, quietly absorbing the absurdity around her while trying to get something, anything, actually done.

Olivia Colman plays the one person in the building who notices how ridiculous everything is, and lets that show only in the smallest flickers of her face. The writing gives her almost no speeches, just reaction shots and dry asides, and Colman turns that restraint into the show's real comic anchor and, eventually, its warmth.