This Life is a BBC television drama that was produced by World Productions and screened on BBC Two. Two series were broadcast in 1996 and 1997 and a reunion special in 2007.

The series centres on the life of five twentysomething law graduates embarking upon their careers while sharing a house in south London.

Production [link]

The series was created by, and some episodes written by Amy Jenkins. Other writers contributed scripts, including Joe Ahearne (who also directed some episodes — the only person to do both on the series), Ian Iqbal Rashid, Amelia Bullmore and Matthew Graham. Tony Garnett was the executive producer and Jane Fallon worked as a producer on both series.

When the first series was screened it was a modest critical success, rather than being a ratings 'hit'. Nevertheless, 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 millions of viewers were waiting to discover the ultimate resolutions to the various plot-lines and generating front-page newspaper coverage.

Synopsis [link]

Series one [link]

This Life is based around life in a London law firm and barristers' chambers of a group of twentysomething trainee solicitors and pupil barristers, but essentially it is a character-driven drama.

Egg (Andrew Lincoln) and Milly (Amita Dhiri) have been dating since they were at university together but their career choices create tension between them. Conscientious Milly is ambitious, spending a lot of time working with her older boss Mr O'Donnell. Egg suffers a crisis of dissatisfaction with a career in law, and soon resigns from the firm.

Anna (Daniela Nardini) and Miles (Jack Davenport) had a brief fling at university and Anna is fixated on the indifferent Miles. Their love-hate relationship makes their work and home life frequently tense.

The other house-mate, Warren (Jason Hughes), is an out gay man. He spends some time dealing with issues around his sexuality, especially in relation to "coming out" to friends and family. In an unusual (at the time) plot device he is frequently seen discussing his feelings with a therapist (Gillian McCutcheon) who is heard and only rarely seen by the viewer.

Miles appears, at times, to dislike Warren, and subjects him to occasional homophobic abuse when angered. Miles's manipulative girlfriend, the drug addicted and bulimic Delilah (Charlotte Bicknell), moves in with him. This results in conflict in the house. When Miles, who hasn't been practising safe sex with Delilah, discovers that she is still sleeping with her heroin addict ex, Truelove, he has an HIV scare. Milly clashes with Egg over his perceived lack of ambition, and becomes attracted to O'Donnell.

Series two [link]

During the second season, storylines were expanded to include other connected characters. These included Ferdy (Ramon Tikaram) - Warren's boyfriend briefly, Rachel (Natasha Little) - new junior trainee at Milly's law firm and Francesca - Miles's girlfriend/fiancee - whilst previously secondary-characters Jo (Steve John Shepherd) and Warren's cousin, Kira (Luisa Bradshaw-White) feature more heavily as they embarked upon a relationship. Ferdy was a largely improvised, complex (and sometimes unwilling) bisexual character and was seen as a replacement for Warren when Jason Hughes decided to leave the show (he did return for the final scene). Finding a relationship with Anna impossible, Miles began a relationship with Francesca, a woman nearly a decade older than he was. Miles proposed to Francesca, but still harboured feelings for Anna.

Rachel had a long-running passive-aggressive feud with Milly, although on the surface the pair were able to work together without mention of their mutual dislike. Milly's dislike of Rachel was very strong, viewing her as a threat to her relationship with O'Donnell, and disliking her apparently perfect demeanour. Milly confided in Anna that she found Rachel almost suffocatingly "nice". The tension between the two went unresolved throughout the second series, culminating in the final scene, in the episode "Apocalypse Wow!". At Miles and Francesca's wedding reception, Rachel is floored by a punch from Milly, after Milly learns that Rachel has told Egg about her affair with their boss, O'Donnell.

Legacy [link]

The second series ended with a close-up of an advert for the house, and the original intention was to re-cast with new characters. The controversial stage writer Mark Ravenhill was involved in drafting storylines and early scripts for a third series, but the plans were aborted, and the decision was taken to end the programme "on a high". Series one and two are available on DVD from BBC Worldwide, as a box set and as two individual series volumes.

In 2001, NBC Television broadcast a loosely adapted U.S. remake titled First Years. It attracted scathing reviews and low ratings, and vanished soon after.

The young production team behind This Life went on to further success:

• 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 write and direct the cult Channel 4 series Ultraviolet (1998) which also starred Jack Davenport. He also directed episodes of the first series of the revived Doctor Who, starring Christopher Eccleston, in 2005.
• Matthew Graham co-created the BBC One series Life on Mars (2006) and has written episodes of Hustle, Spooks and an episode of Doctor Who in 2006
• Ian Iqbal Rashid went on to write and direct the feature films Touch of Pink (Sony Picture Classics, 2004) and How She Move (Paramount Vantage, 2008).

[edit] This Life + 10

In 2006, the BBC reconvened the original cast for a special one-off 80-minute special, looking at what had happened to the lead characters in the intervening ten years. The resulting new episode, entitled + 10 onscreen with the original title sequence used intact making the title of the programme simply This Life as before and the title of the episode "+ 10", was screened on 2 January 2007, and was a co-production between BBC Wales and the original producers World Productions. This Life + 10 was written by Jenkins, directed by Ahearne and produced by Garnett. It gained 3.5 million viewers, with a 14% audience share.^[1]

Production notes [link]

Lead cast [link]

• Miles Stewart (Jack Davenport)
• Djamila "Milly" Nassim (Amita Dhiri)
• Egg (Edgar Cooke) (Andrew Lincoln)
• Anna Forbes (Daniela Nardini)
• Warren Jones (Jason Hughes)
• Ferdy (Ferdinand Garcia) (Ramon Tikaram)
• Michael O'Donnell^[2] (David Mallinson)
• Kira (Luisa Bradshaw-White)
• Jo (Steve John Shepherd)
• Rachel (Natasha Little)
• Graham (Cyril Nri)
• Hooperman (Geoffrey Bateman)

Supporting cast [link]

• The Office and Sherlock star Martin Freeman appeared early in the second series, pictured stealing money from Milly and Egg's bedroom after a party, and accidentally drinking Egg's urine from a can, believing it to be beer.
• Ralph Ineson, also from The Office, featured in an early episode as a client of Milly.
• EastEnders actor Nitin Ganatra appeared in an episode of the second series playing a prospective housemate who manages to upset Milly.
• Another later well-known actor appearing early in the second series is Martin Hancock, who went on to star in Coronation Street as Spider, followed by Holby City as Reg Lund.
• Clare Clifford played lesbian lawyer Sarah Newly in five episodes.
• Tony Curran, who later played Vincent Van Gogh in two episodes of Doctor Who, appeared in seven episodes as handyman Lenny.
• Juliet Cowan played Nicki in 15 episodes. She was later a finalist in the 1999 So You Think You're Funny competition and played Chrissie Jackson in The Sarah Jane Adventures.^[3]
• Stuart Organ, best known as Mr Robson in Grange Hill, appeared as a flasher in the first series.

Locations [link]

• The opening scenes show the house as being on Benjamin Street, which is in EC1 in Clerkenwell. However, the building is actually Anchor Terrace, a terraced house on Southwark Bridge Road. As the characters are often seen commuting from South London it is unclear why the Benjamin Street sign was filmed. The house has since been converted into luxury flats.
• The law firm's offices were filmed on High Holborn near the junction with Chancery Lane. The location for external shots of Moore Spencer Wright are at the bottom end of Borough High Street, now the FTC Kaplan offices.
• The barrister's chambers external shots were filmed outside Verulam Buildings on Gray's Inn Road, part of Gray's Inn; the interior scenes were filmed in the Anchor Terrace house (see above).
• The café that Egg works in, and later runs, is on Victoria Road in North Acton next to the Tube station.
• The café where the characters are often seen having lunch was actually just further down Southwark Bridge Road from the Anchor Terrace house (on the same side). It was called the Island Cafe.
• The job centre Egg visits is on Borough High Street, Southwark, London.
• Miles' country house in the 2007 reunion (Whithurst Park in Sussex) is the same location used in Lewis Series 1 episode 1 "To Whom the Gods Would Destroy".

Other [link]

• A then largely unknown Ricky Gervais, partner of producer Jane Fallon, was credited as "Music Advisor" for the series, and it was he who commissioned the theme tune, written by The Way Out.^[4]

References [link]

External links [link]

• This Life at BBC Programmes
• This Life at World Productions
• This Life at the British Film Institute
• This Life at the BFI's Screenonline
• This Life at TV.com
• This Life at the Internet Movie Database