Here's something I would like to do more of with my opportunities to post at ScreenAnarchy, ask people who have a clearly substantial appreciation for a certain show, film, or Director to do some writing on the subject and pass it along. This time around, MidnightEye contributor Jasper Sharp has kindly put together something about one of the key shows the BBC made during the 1990's here in the UK, the superb 'This Life', which makes a fresh appearance on R2 UK DVD on February 27th 2006.
For all those wanting drama, a touch of comedy, and something which speaks volumes about the 'truth' of the times - potentially those of the age to have been living a similar life during the last decade or so, moving to a new town and sharing with others whilst trying to get your life started - here's Jasper writing on this fine show, rumoured to be making a brief appearance again soon in the form of anniversary reunion specials. Now, I will stay quiet and simply let you read what he has to say.
There's a certain age-range of TV viewers in the UK which is sure to take joy at news of the long-overdue DVD releases on February 27th of the two series of the BAFTA award-winning BBC drama This Life. First airing in 11 x 45 minute episodes way back in 1996, its amazing success ensured its return the following year expanded to an even bigger and bolder 21 episodes, where it sensibly opted to end on a high note.
This Life focussed on the lives of a quintet of young graduates freshly arrived in the city to embark on a career in the cutthroat legal profession, where they end up sharing a house together. Edgy and compelling, it ambitiously combined adult subject matter, a meandering soap opera approach to its numerous story threads and character arcs with a nervous cinema vérité-inspired style of handheld whip pans and jump cuts, where a domestic dispute over whose turn it was to do the washing up was rendered as intense as anything in a Michael Bay movie. Nothing to this point had so successfully celebrated the dismal, damp allure of a career in the capital and the trembling sense of desperation and anticipation that London always manages to exude.
True, its red-wine sloshing characters were antsy and obnoxious to the core, bound by a peculiarly British form of disconnection. But they were instantly recognisable to a generation drawn to London and setting their first feet on the career ladder. Most memorable was Daniela Nardini's Anna, the sassy Scot with a penchant for pithy one-liners, whose volatile will-they-or-won't-they interplay with privileged, moping Miles soon became the talk of the nation. Then there was the almost childishly idealistic Egg, whose departure from the comfort zone of the law firm to embark on his novel puts a notable strain on his relationship with his more pragmatic girlfriend Milly as she is left to lend her financial support to his dreams. Then there were the internal dilemmas of winging Welsh-boy Warren as he struggled to keep his homosexuality hidden from his nearest and dearest.
Several of the cast members have fulfilled their early promise and gained more widespread exposure: Jack Davenport went on from playing Miles to complete a four series run of the Brit-com Coupling and even made it to Hollywood, taking the role of Norrington in the Pirates of the Caribbean films, while Andrew Lincoln, who played Egg, can count roles in such significant films as Human Traffic, Gangster No. 1, Enduring Love and Love Actually on his resumé.
Looking back with the benefit of ten years hindsight (was it really so long ago?), This Life provides a near perfect time-capsule of life late 90s London, a particularly vibrant transitional phase in the days before the euphoria of Tony Blair's New Labour, when the mobile phone still represented the crassest of status symbols, when raves and pill-popping provided the ultimate weekend wind-down from the rigours of workaday life, and Princess Diana was still alive and kicking in the media spotlight (her status in the public's mind prior to her canonisation after her fatal crash succinctly captured by a particularly vitriolic comparison with Miles' new unemployed and light-fingered bulimic girlfriend Delilah whom he antagonistically has moved into the house; “Another parasite living on my tax money.”)
This Life certainly never skimped in its portrays of the sex, debauchery and drug-taking that its characters indulged in, which is one of the reasons it proved so popular. It made no attempt to window-dress the lives so many young aspiring professionals in the city were living at the time. But its enduring appeal rests on its superb writing, its sharp dialogue, its melodramatic cliffhangers, the on-the-mark pop cultural references and the dynamics between all of its characters.
The new DVD releases marks the first opportunity in years to see the arguably stronger second series. Both were repeated on BBC 2 back in Summer 2000, but though the first finally made it onto DVD back in 2003, those addicts eager for more from where that came from were left hungry as the prohibitively high costs in clearing the rights for the soundtrack kept it from release. Available separately or as a double-disk set, This Life perfectly captures the Cool Britannia zeitgeist, and for this and so many other reasons is well worthy of a revisit.
'This Life' Series 1 and 2 Box Set on R2 UK DVD February 27th 2006 at Amazon.co.uk [Direct Link].
'This Life' Series 1 on R2 UK DVD February 27th 2006 at Amazon.co.uk [Direct Link].
'This Life' Series 2 on R2 UK DVD February 27th 2006 at Amazon.co.uk [Direct Link].