"We took inspiration from British New Wave films like Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and Billy Liar but also Bruce Springsteen’s Thunder Road. We love Americana. Cemetery Junction is also influenced by Diner and Rebel Without A Cause and Saturday Night Fever."

Gervais and Merchant’s aim was to capture some of the spirit of British cinema from the 1950s and 1960s, when the so-called New Wave led to such ground-breaking classics as Billy Liar, Saturday Night And Sunday Morning, A Taste Of Honey and Alfie which introduced the world to a new generation of British acting talent including Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay, Julie Christie, Shirley Anne Field, Michael Caine and Rita Tushingham. "I suppose we’re trying to do a new New Wave," says Gervais.
 
"That new wave of British cinema which made stars of Michael Caine and Albert Finney managed to portray England realistically but they were also popular," says Merchant. "In a way, we’re trying to ape that sort of thing and make England glamorous and fun but not sweet and cloying and sentimental in a chocolate box way."

"We’re not presenting a gritty, slit-my-wrists version of 1970s England," adds Gervais. "Cemetery Junction is upbeat and quite rock ‘n’ roll. And there’s a nobility in our poverty as well. I was from a working class family and I grew up on an estate and my memories of the early 70s was of my mum always tending roses and always trying to make the house look nice.

"It was fun, the summers were hot. Of course, that’s obviously nostalgia playing tricks. But we’re trying to put that on screen. We don’t want this to be a depressing, gritty, kitchen sink drama."

Cemetery Junction also afforded Gervais and Merchant the chance to explore a new demographic, young people on the cusp of their adult lives.

"Most of our past work has been about people approaching middle age starting to think about where their life is going, maybe trapped in certain worlds," says Merchant.

"We’re still interested in those subjects but we’re also interested in how those things can still confront you when you’re twentysomething. The decisions you make then can have an impact on the rest of your life."

While some of the characters in The Office, Tim and Dawn, for example, were grappling with those kinds of issues about their future, they were already approaching 30.

In Cemetery Junction, the four main characters, Freddie, Bruce, Snork and Julie - are in their early 20s but that was exactly the age at which people in the 1970s were thinking about marriage and settling down.

It was certainly a theme that struck a chord with the film’s producers Sue Baden-Powell, and Charlie Hanson. Hanson, whose working relationship with Gervais and Merchant began on Extras, was immediately impressed by the universality of the script’s themes.

"The reason the story works for the cinema is because those four young people could be from any town, anywhere, at any point in time. Even thought it’s set in southern England it’s a universal story that could equally well work in Buenos Aires.

"When I read it, it reminded me of American Graffiti in the way the characters were too big for the town they were in and I thought: Great, we’ve got a British American Graffiti on our hands!"

Baden-Powell, meanwhile, had executive produced Gervais’ The Invention Of Lying. She also responded emotionally to the script. "Although I did grow up in the 1970s I didn’t grow up in England but even so, I could very much relate to the characters and their desire to get out of a small town.

"Working with two directors was an interesting experience. Ricky and Stephen really do finish each other’s sentences. They work as a team completely; it’s like working with one director. They work very quickly and know what they want. It was a pleasure to work with them."

Cemetery Junction is released 14th April.

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