'This Life' repeats on BBC Four from Feb 3rd, 10pm
"Out there is chaos..." From the opening words of Warren Jones to the wild & heartbreaking rollercoaster finale 'This Life' changed everything. It changed British television. It changed me.
First airing in 1996, the BBC Two drama followed a group of twentysomething lawyers sharing a house in South London. It was a drama like no other before. Labelled as hard-hitting and controversial, I never saw it like that, it was just showing young people as they are with no filter - navigating their way into adulthood, their struggles with relationships, friendships & careers. They had all 'made it' to the big city with their new careers but were all lost in their own way. The housemates chain smoked, got drunk, took drugs and shagged their way through 2 glorious series. It was perfection.
Ratings were steady but as word of mouth and media coverage grew, series 1 was repeated to run up to the series 2 premiere gaining more viewers than the original broadcast. We were gripped as the housemates and the wider casts lives become more entangled with each other. It's difficult to describe what made the show so incredible without spoilers. The characters were fully formed from the start, they had depth and were all totally believable. The show became the 'water cooler' moment the following day for viewers. We laughed and despaired at the antics of Milly & Egg, Warren, Miles, Anna & Ferdy. The other characters were equally important to the show and how the characters stories unfolded, the stand out of course was the hilarious Kira played by Luisa Bradshaw-White. I wanted to be mates with Kira, actually I still do!
Every character in that house in Benjamin Street were fascinating, even the rotten ones were somehow likeable, but Daniela Nardini's portrayal of Anna Forbes was sublime and remains one of my favourite TV characters of all time. A newly qualified barrister, she was so smart but so flawed. Anna would make you laugh then cry in seconds. She was straight forward but complex and wiser than her years, her one liners are some of the best in TV history. When lighting another cigarette, Miles quips
"you know those things kill 2000 people a week?"
Anna's reply:
"imagine if they didn't, imagine if there was 2000 more people staying around every week. As it is there isn't room to swing a cat".
"you know those things kill 2000 people a week?"
Anna's reply:
"imagine if they didn't, imagine if there was 2000 more people staying around every week. As it is there isn't room to swing a cat".
Daniela Nardini as Anna Forbes
As a teenager when the show first aired 'This Life' was and remains as important to me as the music I was listening to, the clothes I was wearing and the magazines I was reading. The shows backdrop was its soundtrack, they were listening to the same music as the rest of us in the Britpop nineties. They got stoned with Portishead and took E's with Underworld. Every scene was soundtracked with the likes of Faithless, Skunk Anansie, New Order, Oasis, Sleeper, Supergrass and Manic Street Preachers.
The influence of the show is huge. The shows creator Amy Jenkins gave us what we really needed, showing twenty somethings getting up to what most of them were actually doing. It was refreshing and new and we loved it at a time when the younger TV viewers only had the likes of 'Friends' portraying them. It's the reason other 'young' dramas followed like Tinsel Town, Burn It, Queer As Folk, No Angels and Teachers. Recent American dramas like Lena Dunham's 'Girls' and 'Euphoria' have also shown that the influence of This Life is still being felt.
My VHS boxset was upgraded to DVD and I've watched it so many times I'm now on my second copy. As BBC Four are repeating the show I only hope that they don't want to offend the new generation of viewers and edit it down. It's perfection and should be shown in its entirety.
At nearly 25 years old it has stood the test of time, the housemates struggles are the same for that age group today - money, work, ambition, expectations and relationships. As series 2 ended so explosively, millions of us waited for news of series 3. There was never a series 3 and now I'm so grateful, we had 2 series of perfection and nothing they could have done in a third series would satisfy all of the viewers as characters would have had to move on. 10 years on we were treated to 'This Life +10', it didn't please some viewers. After 10 years viewers had drawn their own conclusions as to what became of them all. When we saw that it wasn't the same as we had imagined, it wasn't looked on as a success. I was satisfied with it and loved catching up with my favourite housemates, it's part of my boxset and always watch the whole thing every time.
I urge everyone to re-visit 13 Benjamin Street, that house and its inhabitants are a vital part of TV history. It's where we first met and fell in love with this group of actors, following their careers post 'This Life' with varying success, the biggest star to come from the show is of course Andrew Lincoln. From playing the hilarious Simon in 'Teachers' & Rick Grimes in 'The Walking Dead', but he will always have a special place for me as the adorable Egg that we all fell in love with.
Life now is even more confusing and frightening than it was in 1996 & 1997, Warren was right then and now, 'out there is chaos...'
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