This Life
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This Life was a BBC television drama, produced by World Productions and screened on BBC Two, running for two series in 1996 and 1997.
The series was created by Amy Jenkins and centres on the life of five twentysomething Law graduates attempting to make lives and careers while sharing a house in South London, England. Other writers who contributed scripts to the series included Joe Ahearne (who also directed some episodes, the only person to do both on the series), Amelia Bullmore and Matthew Graham. Tony Marchant was the Executive Producer and Jane Fallon worked as a producer on both series.
When the first series was screened it was a modest cult and critical, rather than massive ratings hit but the original production agreement secured a second series. In the lead-up to the broadcast of the second series, the entire first series was repeated, helping to generate a critical buzz around the programme, to the point that by the end of Series Two, millions were waiting to discover the resolution to the various plotlines, generating front-page newspaper coverage.
The series ended with a close-up of an advert for the house, and the original intention was to re-cast the series with new characters. The controversial stage writer Mark Ravenhill was involved in drafting storylines and early scripts for Series Three, but the plans were aborted, and the decision was taken to leave the series to have ended on a high until 2006, when the BBC reconvened the original cast for a special one-off follow-up, looking at what had happened to the lead characters in the intervening ten years. The resulting new episode of This Life is due to be screened at Christmas 2006.
The original five main characters were
- Miles (played by Jack Davenport)
- Milly (played by Amita Dhiri)
- Egg (played by Andrew Lincoln)
- Anna (played by Daniela Nardini)
- Warren (played by Jason Hughes).
A lot of the drama in the series came from tensions in the relationship between the characters. Egg and Milly's relationship from their university-days survived their graduation but career choices created tension between the two. Milly was an ambitious high-flyer, contemplating an affair with her older boss, whereas Egg dropped out of his law-career very early on in the first series. Meanwhile, Anna and Miles had a very much love/hate relationship which caused conflict at work (where they shared an office and often had to compete for cases) and at home. The latter was exacerbated by Miles' decision in the first series to invite his girlfriend, the drug addicted, manipulative Delilah (Charlotte Bicknell), to unofficially move into the house. This caused a great deal of disturbance for all of the housemates (including the infamous incident of eating Warren's yogurt).
Warren, as an 'out' gay male, spent a lot of time dealing with issues around his sexuality (particularly in relation to "coming out" to colleagues and family). In a unique (at the time) plot device, he was seen relating his inner feelings to a therapist (Gillian McCutcheon) who was heard but not seen by the viewer at all during the entire run of the show.
During the second season, additional characters were added to the show's roster such as 'Ferdy' (Ramon Tikaram) and 'Rachel' (Natasha Little), whilst previously secondary-characters Jo (Steve John Shepherd) and Kira (Luisa Bradshaw-White) were featured more heavily as they embarked upon a relationship. Ferdy was seen as a largely improvised, complex (and sometimes unwilling) bi-sexual character and was seen as a replacement for Warren when Jason Hughes decided to leave the show (he did return for one quick line in the final scene). Rachel was a complex and tricky character, often seen in subdued conflict with her colleague Milly. The tension between the two went unresolved throughout the second series, culminating in a brilliant final scene.
Trivia
- A then largely unknown Ricky Gervais, partner of producer Jane Fallon, was credited as "Music Advisor" for the series.
- Fellow Office star Martin Freeman appeared early in the second series, pictured stealing money from Milly and Egg's bedroom after a party.
- Jane Fallon went on to become Executive Producer on the Channel 4 series Teachers which also starred Andrew Lincoln.
- Joe Ahearne later went on to direct episodes of the first series of the revived Doctor Who, starring Christopher Eccleston, in 2005. Fellow This Life writer Matthew Graham wrote an episode of Doctor Who in 2006.
DVD release
The complete This Life is available on DVD (Region 2, U.K.) from BBC Worldwide, as a box set, and individual series volumes.External link
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