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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

This Life

07:34 / 15.04.06

Xoc recently bought me the boxed DVD set of both series of This Life, and I have gorged myself silly on the whole lot in the space of about a week.

At the time (mid 90s) I remember This Life being absolutely must-see television. There just wasn't anything like it: 'gritty'(ish) UK drama focussed on twentysomething young professional flatsharing, examining the career/relationship anxieties attendant upon having graduated from Uni and taking on work responsibilities (dealing with ambivalence and reconciling those responsibilities with one's personal quirks and neuroses). To an extent, it probably rode the wave of BritPop; the soundtrack was pretty much what we were both listening to back then.

I was afraid it'd look twee and awful on a repeat viewing, but it actually stands up incredibly well - probably because it's well written and produced, and the characterisation is superb. Anna is magnetic, and the slowly unfolding tragedy of Egg and Millie (complete with wonderfully ambiguous Rachel/Iago - who seems slightly more sympathetic this time around) is almost Shakespearean.

It wasn't that common, even as recently as 1995, to see well-rounded non-heterosexual characters, and Warren ("I'm off to get some cock") survives the decade intact - although the attempts at depicting his Big Gay Farewell Party (neither a sexy party nor, sadly, an orgy) are a bit cringey: lots of leather chaps, pink balloons and arms-aloft dancing to, for fuck's sake, Bronski Beat (in the '90s). Credible male bisexuals onscreen are even rarer, and I was impressed that Ferdy's non-homosexuality was emphasised throughout (I don't think Ramon Tikaram's ever had the work again: last I saw him, he was the genie in Aladdin, at the Old Vic).

The big finale of Series 2 is still shocking in its utter money shotness.

And now a one-off, Jenkins-scripted Ten Years Later is in early development. I have mixed feelings about this...

Anyone else a fan?

miss wonderstarr

08:27 / 15.04.06

I caught onto it midway through series 2 I think, and though it mattered a great deal to me, my friends and it seemed, everyone writing a newspaper or magazine column at the time - there was a short period where it seemed it wasn't just watercooler TV but toilet-queue TV, corner-shop TV, petrol-pump TV - my main feeling about it now is God I'm old and the last decade went fast. I doubt I'll be the only one.

As with the prospect of a Breakfast Club reunion, one of the interesting factors is the relative fates of the actors in the gap years. One's starred opposite J. Depp, one's done the Genie in panto...

10:46 / 15.04.06

God I'm old and the last decade went fast

God yes. When it first appeared, I was a twentysomething professional a few years graduated, and agog at seeing onscreen similar careeer/personal-balancing angst the likes of wot I had recently known - plus the coming out as gay stuff, which was also relatively fresh to me back then. We lived in Edinburgh, and I seem to recall finding the This Lifestyle incredibly aspirational: big, pistachio-walled flat in Central London, etc...

miss wonderstarr

11:33 / 15.04.06

Living in London, I found Shallow Grave's vast Edinburgh flat, with just the right almost-clashing colours (mustard and cornflower or something) equally aspirational. They are probably quite similar texts in some ways and equally reflective of their moment.

11:55 / 15.04.06

Hah yes, we painted our kitchen burnt orange and cornflower blue after having seen (the wonderful) Shallow Grave - which would now, I suspect, look horrendously dated. Of course, Shallow Grave was filmed on a specially-constructed set bigger than pretty much any Edinburgh flat: it was similarly Georgian but, compared with our own more humble abode, the size of a football field.

As well as cataloguing the young professional thing, both Shallow Grave and This Life caught that period of transition between communal living and pairing off/going single. Both depicted the gradual disintegration of the flatsharing idyll...

miss wonderstarr

12:05 / 15.04.06

Factor the relevant season of Friends in there, and you've got an article...

14:36 / 15.04.06

At the time, a few of my friends were in pretty much the same situation (trainee solicitors in a 'haven for lawyers' in South London,) to the one depicted in the series, so I remember having a couple of reservations about the show's accuracy - the characters didn't drink enough, they didn't take enough drugs and in particular, they didn't hate their jobs with anything like enough of a burning passion. Granted (and I'm sure the people concerned wouldn't mind me saying this) a script by Irvine Welsh on 'Trainspotting' form would have probably felt a bit light on detail - in the mid-Nineties, it seemed very hell to be a trainee solicitor and they should have been saying so, damnit - but for a show that purported to be all about grit and realism, it did used to seem almost comically aspirational.

Ten years ago then, it seems safe to say that I was a lot, I don't know, angrier about things in general. And I did used to watch it every week, all the same.

Not so sure about the reunion though - I could live with another series, but I wonder how much they're going to be able to do in (presumably) a ninety minute special, when part of the original appeal was the relatively gradual unfolding of events, as in the case, for example, of Milly's affair.

09:59 / 16.04.06

I really enjoyed 'This Life' and was upset when I learnt there wasn't to be a 3rd series. There was something almost aspirational about this show - i had just finished my 1st degree and was wondering what I'd do with my life. I was living in a share-house, (probably the best shared-space I've lived in) and we'd all gather to watch 'This Life' and then an Australian drama called "Raw fm" that dealt broadly with the same themes.

That all really seems so long ago, but i do look forward to seeing the '10 years later' special.

10:56 / 19.04.06

I'm having mixed feelings about the 10 years on... thing. On the one hand, it would be great to revisit a bunch of characters I really engaged with (probably the last time I did actually get so involved with TV characters), on the other hand, maybe it would actually be like, y'know, meeting up with people you hadn't seen for a decade and realising you don't have much in common with them any more and you didn't really like them all that much anyway.

Still. I wouldn't be inviting them round for dinner, just watching them on the telly for an hour or so, so perhaps I should get a grip.

Interesting you see Rachel as less obnoxious the second time around, Ganesh. I remember when I first hooked up with Mrs Sax the series was being repeated (this would be about 2000) and as we'd both loved it first time around watched it again together (aaahh). I do remember thinking Rachel was not as objectionable as I had previously thought. Maybe I mellowed with time. But Millie's killer punch at the end of the series was still a joy.

I always liked Miles, even though he was rich and stupid, if only for the one scene where Ferdy is hassling Warren on the doorstep and Miles, previously a bit dismissive of Warren, strong-arm's Ferdy out of the way with a lovely: "Back off, leather-boy". Made you think that, despite his faults, he could be a loyal friend when the need arose.

Sigh. The mid-90s.

11:15 / 19.04.06

Loomis and I have just finished watching the whole of This Life -- the first time he's seen it and a real nostalgia trip for me.
I found Anna decidedly more nutty, when I used to think she was great (which says interesting things about what I was like in my 20s), and yes, I felt a bit sorry for Rachel, felt she was just trying to be liked.
Just like the first time, I feel bereft now that it's over and we don't have any more to watch. So while I'm ambivalent about the 10 years on thing, I can't wait to see it.

12:42 / 19.04.06

I knew of the show and its reputation but had never seen it so we tracked down the videos a while back on ebay (not like Mr Ganesh and his posh dvd edition), and it took us a while to work through the first series because, while I liked it for all the reasons given above, I found it pretty depressing and the whole scene unnecessarily fucked up. There wasn’t enough real plot other than soap-style clashes of character over and over and Anna constantly trashing every chance of anything good happening to her. Also as an unambitious sort the whole career/life drama remains something of a mystery to me, and while I couldn’t really understand their devotions to such a shitty job, I also found Egg supremely irritating for fucking about and not even working a part-time job while sponging off Milly. Possibly watching it while boozing isn’t the best idea but I would really start to wonder about the point of living after a couple of these episodes. But I couldn’t give up on it as it was much better written than your average series and like others the mid-nineties sharehouse is part of my consciousness.

However once we got onto the second series we zipped through the tapes (not to mention remembering the joy of coming back the next day to find the tape still waiting at the moment you stopped it unlike DVDs where you have to wade through a menu to get started and woe betide you if you stopped mid-episode). I think there was more plot to support the weight of the characters and it gave the whole thing more depth and direction. Even while there were still plenty of fuckups, it felt a lot more positive than endless pointless arguments.

I agree that Rachel was done brilliantly. I found her extremely annoying at first, and couldn’t decide whether she was sneaky or whether Milly was just paranoid, and it develops at a nice slow pace so that just as Milly is cracking up we get to be reasonably sure that Rachel is innocent and just trying to be liked. She even gives Milly away while trying to be nice (or did she …?). And a great ending. Wrapped things up sufficiently but left it open enough to allow room for speculation.

13:34 / 19.04.06

the reunion sounds like a dreadful idea really - amy jenkins hasn't had a hit since, despite nutty advances for novels and the like iirc, and now when she appears on telly as a talking head (she's THE go-to gal for i heart the nineties and thing) she's even more annoying than, i don't know, miles? egg's pilled-up dad? the only thing i think the reunion show could credibly say at this stage is 'and now they're all right cunts: labour-voting lawyers to a man, they've had the country for a decade and proper fucked it'.

as said upstairs, it was a hugely aspirational show in very much the same way as friends really, involving the same kind of weekly rituals - getting into a small gang, sneaky bottle of beer or clandestine ciggies, delaying or missing pubs and parties for it, all because we hated living at home and wanted to go to university and make amazing mates (who'd been picked for their skills rather than thrust upon us by geography) and live somewhere nice to drink in. gave me the strength to hope that finishing being a teenager didn't have to mean instant mum-and-dadification.

sweird though, if i think about this life now i just get massive attack (second maxwell house album though, not the li'l bit ruff first album) going through my head - if there's one thing the show did, it sure killed triphop for me. one of those dreadful indie/adolescent attitudes - the fact that millions of peole had now heard it over the tellywaves meant it sure wasn't the music for me no more. i still hate massive attack.

14:08 / 19.04.06

I also found it interesting to see Jack Davenport playing such a bastard after knowing him previously from Coupling. And of course he does the voice over for stacks of ads, including that Mastercard one.

03:16 / 20.04.06

god, a decade passes....

i was in thrall to 'this life' when it was first on - somehow got wind of it as it was about to screen, so got hooked from episode one; but after it had wound up the broadcaster here (our abc, bless 'em) replayed it and i watched a couple episodes now and again, but found that once the thrill had gone (knew what happens next) it didn't captivate me again at all...

am i just fickle? mebbe time is a great forgetter and i'll be hooked if i see it again - but seeing jack as a bastard and coupling will be too strong a mix of images for this brain in this life...

12:10 / 20.04.06

So can anyone tell me whether they knew it was the end of the show when they filmed that last episode of the second season or did they not decide that until later?

12:23 / 20.04.06

They left the option open, but subsequently decided against it.

12:23 / 20.04.06

I would think that the high drama of that last scene, with everything coming to a head, and Warren returning the way he did, suggests it was a planned climax. But was it just the climax to Series 2 -- did they hope to go on and do a third?

13:20 / 20.04.06

I seem to remember they were talking about carrying on the show with different characters, who'd have moved into the house when the old set-up collapsed.

16:01 / 20.04.06

I hated it. My flatmates at the time watched it, so I ended up seeing a fair bit of it. Couldn't get into it at all because I despised all of the characters. If I met them in real life, I think I would hate them and want to spend as little time in their company as possible. Couldn't really see the appeal of watching their despicable, repellent lives on television.

19:40 / 20.04.06

And yet you enjoy reading Barbelith?

20:03 / 20.04.06

Isn't hating the characters without reservation a key part of enjoying a soap, though? I mean I'm not lamenting the absence of 'Footballers Wives'in this evenings telly schedule because I miss their company.

05:17 / 04.01.07

So did anyone else watch This Life + 10? Just in case you've still got it to watch, I'd better say I'm going to mention SPOILERS:

General opinion in the press seemed to be 'never go back', and there was a lot I cringed at - the ticking off of Naughties buzzwords for one, life coach - check, Ipod - check, Iraq - check. The documentary device managed to be teeth-cringingly awful ('Look! The characters that became media sensations have become media sensations! They're asking you why you're so interested in seeing them again! It's so meta you could squeal') and yet at the same time so 90s-postcard-postmodern it was rather appropriate.

It also formed the basis of the most powerful moment for me, when you were waiting and waiting and waiting for Claire to stop filming Warren popping the pills. Now if they hadn't pulled the punch and instead actually had him overdose, that would have said something genuinely interesting about the difference between the Benjamin Street gang and what they thought of as the youth of today.

But it would have involved killing off Warren, and the reason I'm feeling well-disposed to the special despite its flaws is that it really was so good to see all the characters again. I'd re-watched the whole thing (on creaky VHS boxsets) in the run up to this, and it was great to have it fresh in the mind. Spotting what had changed (Anna getting more and more depressed as Warren's Ipod shuffled through all the old Portishead favourites) and what stayed the same was the best bit. Miles, in particular, managed to pull the moves on Anna with almost identical body language as he used in series one - I'd love to know if Jack Davenport went back and watched the old tapes or if he just did it subconsciously the moment he dropped back into Miles mode.

Still, lovely as it was to see them again, I don't think I need a This Life + 20 (although I can't be the only one who's curious to see what a kid that's equal parts Anna and Warren turns out like).

(END SPOILERS)

Whisky Priestess

09:45 / 04.01.07

But what the sweet potatoes was going on with his hair, though? (Miles's, I mean). It looked like he'd accidentally left on his wig from PotC 2 when he was playing the drunken Commodore.

Also, not a fan of the token East Asian, who was nothing but a cliche - delicate whispering flower turns into screeching harpy (screeching in her native language, yet!) then fucks off as soon as the money runs out. If I were a Vietnamese woman I'd be winding up for a Milly-punch on Amy Jenkins.

I think it would have been more interesting to have had Anna married/coupled and Miles single. But apart from that, I did enjoy it, although the Iraq/carbon footprint argument felt shoehorned in and the documentary girl/theme was an irritating waste of space. Some nice lines and scenes though, and Warren got more of a look-in than usual.

10:51 / 04.01.07

What happened to Francesca?

10:57 / 04.01.07

It also formed the basis of the most powerful moment for me, when you were waiting and waiting and waiting for Claire to stop filming Warren popping the pills. Now if they hadn't pulled the punch and instead actually had him overdose, that would have said something genuinely interesting about the difference between the Benjamin Street gang and what they thought of as the youth of today.

And it would've reduced Warren to the level of a gay stereotype from well before the sodding '90s. When I saw Warren popping the pills, I thought, "oh, for fuck's sake" because I feared Jenkins was succumbing to the hideous old cliches of Gay Man + Tablets = either HIV Meds or Histrionic Overdose. In my opinion, either option would've been genuinely uninteresting to the extent that they'd have lost me as a viwer.

I liked it a lot. But yes, Miles' James Blunt affair was a definite hairdon't.

Whisky Priestess

10:59 / 04.01.07

Core people only; no Francesca (or reference to what happened to her), Ferdy

SPOILERS

is dead

END SPOILERS

no Rachel, no punky girl at the solicitor's office who fancied ?Egg?. Just Warren, Egg, Millie, Anna and Miles

11:04 / 04.01.07

Didn't Ferdy go travelling, hook up with a bunch of English/Australian late twentysomethings and meet a sticky end on a riverboat in Bangkok?

Tryphena Absent

12:16 / 04.01.07

I really enjoyed it, she really hadn't lost the characters and Whisky I disagree with you because Anna wouldn't have got married in the interim, Miles wouldn't be single, it would have been really uncharateristic. The documentary maker was there for the play-against, how could you express Millie's usual insecure aggression and Egg's useless curiosity if you didn't have some kind of foil to set them against? I agree with you about the Iraq thing although I did love the Miles votes tory argument.

My favourite things were the bits that brought back that feeling that these were people: Millie's response to falling off the horse, Warren's pills (it wouldn't have worked if he had overdosed, it wouldn't have made any sense for Warren to do that because he was always lucky and sinking in his own silliness), Anna's cigarettes, Egg getting soaked by the broken sink.

I could totally handle another special in 10 years time!

Whisky Priestess

14:28 / 04.01.07

Fair points all, but given that it starts with a funeral (a really good reason to get them all back together again) and then just chucks that opportunity away in favour of some dreadful-sounding "weekend in the life" documentary wild horses would have to drag most people to be involved with ...

The documentary device made me wonder why ANY professional person would agree to that sort of thing - it's not exactly going to do Anna any favours in court, or Miles much good in the business world, is it? Warren, Millie and Egg are the only ones whose motivations for taking part are really believable.

I dunno, I just would have preferred a post-funeral piss-up (Anna excepted)- that would have struck me as less contrived and easier to believe, as well as narratively a lot neater. They could all have been staying in a local hotel (or else Miles Mansion could have been nearby) and that would have got rid of annoying camera girl - who did her best with bugger all, but really didn't add much.

16:29 / 04.01.07

In my opinion, either option would've been genuinely uninteresting to the extent that they'd have lost me as a viwer.

Sorry, I'm expressing myself badly - the interesting bit for me was Claire continuing to film (particularly as I started to get a strong vibe that Warren was perfectly aware she was there), in the light of her conversation with Miles about what she'd do if the house caught fire. I agree wholeheartedly that going with the overdose would have been rubbish in general and doubly rubbish if it was Warren, because well, I love the bloke.

16:39 / 04.01.07

It's perhaps the least interesting thing a scriptwriter can do with a gay man and some tablets.

09:08 / 05.01.07

tablets just don't have the same dramatic possibilities as a stopwatch

...apparently.

Whereas the series was brilliant because it deftly avoided melodramatic cliches - (eg no-one got addicted to all the drugs flying around, none of the gay characters had to deal with AIDS, etc etc) I thought perhaps that wasn't such a virtue in the special.

Indeed such plot as there was seemed to consist of a series of dramatic cliches avoided -

SPOILERS

The kid didn't swallow a coin, Millie didn't die in a horsey accident, Warren didn't overdose, Anna and Miles didn't live happily together ever after.

The resolution of everything kind of came in from left field in terms of the characters - Myles financial troubles came to a head and he headed off to Mali. both these aspects of the end of the show weren't really set up in the series or the special.

That's (this) life I suppose. You think you know someone....

There's one aspect of the show that I'd say is more something that happens in fiction rather than real life and therefore a bit of a melodramatic cliche. I thought it stretched credulity in both the series and the special that there were characters who write their first book and then get it published just like that. Most writers including Jenkins probably would tell you that its a long lonely struggle getting to the point of publication. Honing your craft and all that.

That this should happen twice in one family (Egg's Da then Egg) seems like lightning striking twice!

09:44 / 05.01.07

10 years have gone by - ample time for Egg to have written several drafts, gone through a number of failed attempts to get a publishing deal, etc. The set up at the beginning is him promoting the book (suggesting recent publication) and struggling with writing the second.

I don't think that's the instant overnight success story that you are suggesting.