Booze, drugs and eggs in the buff! How did this life impact the world of television? television

HeyRadical sex in the kitchen. Smoking weed and talking about temazepam. Full frontal shower scene by Andrew Lincoln. And this is only in the first episode. Welcome to this life. Play that Portishead CD and leave your inhibitions (and your clothes) at the door.

This Wednesday marks 30 years since this historical drama appeared on our screens amid cigarette smoke and insults. The BBC is marking the anniversary by rerunning the defunct 1990s saga, with a new introduction by actress Daniela Nardini, who played rookie heroine Anna. It enables viewers to revisit a cult classic that not only captured the hedonistic spirit of the Cool Britannia era but left a lasting mark on television.

Amy Jenkins, the show’s creator and head writer, recalls how This Life came about: “Michael Jackson – not that guy, the controller of BBC Two – wanted it to be like Channel 4, so he decided to commission young people with a brilliant drama about trainee lawyers. When I told him [executive producer] Tony Garnett I was a lawyer briefly, his eyes lit up. But I didn’t want to write a show about lawyers! Damn, so boring. That’s why I left to become a writer. I agreed on the condition that we would not have any scenes in the courtroom and that it was not about the law at all. I had another idea for a script about the rave scene, so I brought that spirit to it.

Her innovative series followed a gang of law graduates as they began their adult lives while sharing a shabby house near Southwark Bridge in London. The wine flowed. The joke flew. Debauchery ensued. “I remember being at BBC meetings and people asking, ‘Why do we care about this group of idiots?’” Jenkins says. “By that they meant fairly privileged college graduates. It was strange at the time to show middle-class young people who were drinking, cursing, taking drugs and having sex. This struck a chord because that generation had never been represented on television. No one was even trying.”

Viewers felt like they really got to know the characters, learning to love them, hate them, or admire them. Daydreamer Edgar, also known as “Egg” (Lincoln), has been in a long-term relationship with the ambitious Millie (Amita Dere). At least, until the contrasting approaches to their careers caused tension. Warren (Jason Hughes) was from Wales, gay, and in therapy. The scenes of Warren’s counseling sessions with an unseen psychiatrist came years before HBO got there with The Sopranos, Big Little Lies, and In Treatment. “Therapy wasn’t as ubiquitous as it is now, but I’ve been in therapy since I was 20,” Jenkins says. “Most of my friends were. And if they weren’t, they were talking about it. As a writer, you’re always looking to go places no one has gone before. Plus, therapy makes for great scenes.”

The series’ killer weapon was the love-hate relationship between posh Miles (Jack Davenport) and his lover, Libby Anna. For mid-90s viewers, the duo Ross and Rachel became locals – frenemies who had an affair at university and clearly belong together. Viewers wanted them to admit their feelings and settle the matter. But since this was a satirical British drama and not an American sitcom, they never did.

As Nardini says in her introduction: “Our ‘will they or won’t they will’ relationship excited and excited viewers. It was an important attraction for the audience. People really bought into it and wanted to be together.” “The characters were loosely based on my personality and my friends,” Jenkins says. “I lived in a share house and my social life was very chaotic. Anna was kind of my alter ego, while Miles was the kind of handsome guy I dreamed of but couldn’t get anywhere with. Well, sometimes a little!”

As a self-destructive yet lovable mess, Anna was the model for Fleabag – a chain-smoking whirlwind of charisma in a little black dress and leopard-skin coat. Phoebe Waller-Bridge cites This Life as one of her formative performances. “Although she was an outspoken, swearing, drinker, and was good at her job, there was a real vulnerability about Anna,” Nardini says. She won a BAFTA for her show-stealing performances.

With its bold and provocative depiction of recreational drug use and casual sex, This Life spoke to an entire generation. “I’ve never encountered anything like this,” Nardini says. “It was fresh and youthful, but it wasn’t like Hollyoaks. They were drinking and doing drugs but there weren’t any major consequences. No one dropped dead or went into recovery. It was unapologetic.”

The Daily Mail itself declared it “shocking”. “They used to call and say their readers were disgusted,” Jenkins says. I should have replied: “Well, I’m disgusted by the Daily Mail.” I’m happy if this moves things forward in terms of inclusivity, especially the gay sex scenes. One of my proudest moments was receiving a letter from a young gay man who worked at the post office. “I want to thank you because your program changed my life,” he said.

The BBC has largely left them out, except for the F-bombs and tongue-in-cheek. “They once cut three seconds off the tongue,” Jenkins says. “We also had a limited number of phrases that could be said in each episode.” “They gave them all to Anna because she swore by the best,” Nardini smiles. The show almost included a Saltburn moment: “I remember I gave Jack Davenport a scene where Miles was masturbating in the bathroom but he refused to do it.” Jenkins laughs. “I don’t blame him. Maybe it was a little out of order on my part.”

The storylines tackled previously taboo topics, from eating disorders to HIV fears — not to mention the theory that “the Beatles are boring.” Jenkins attracted attention at a BBC meeting by expressing this deliberately provocative opinion. She then puts the line in Anna’s mouth during the first episode.

Veteran producer Garnett was a long-time collaborator of Ken Loach and wanted the action to look very real, hence no studio sets or smooth editing. “This Life” was filmed almost entirely on location. The pioneering use of wobbly handheld cameras gave the film a raw, voyeuristic, documentary-like feel. This technique would later be adopted in everything from The Cops to Succession. “We actors felt very free,” says Nardini. “We were never given marks to hit, the camera just followed us.” “This quick intimacy has become the norm now,” Jenkins adds.

When the late-night show was launched on BBC Two in the spring of 1996, it flew under many radars and achieved only modest success. But a second series has already been released, and in the run-up to its broadcast, the first show was repeated to great fanfare. This life finally took off. The attractive cast made it to the front pages and the plot lines became talking points. It was promoted to prime time, attracted an impressive audience of 4 million and sold strongly on VHS.

“Tony was very clear that he wanted viewers to discover the show for themselves,” says Jenkins. “There were no billboards, there was no big campaign. He wanted people to find it and feel like it was theirs. Fortunately, that’s exactly what happened. We had an infamous review in Time Out for the first episode but they actually backed it down, which was unheard of. After seven episodes, they wrote: ‘We’ll admit we got this wrong.’ That never happens. A lot of people were rude about this life. When it was a solid hit, dare I say it, it was a bit of a classic, This was the best revenge.

“The show exploded,” Nardini says. “I was on the escalator on the Leicester Square tube with my brother and someone shouted: ‘Oh my God, there’s an Anna from this life!’ My brother asked: ‘Are you a rock star?’”

This Life became one of the first successful box set-style programs on British television. She was also among the first to release an acoustic album. The zeitgeist’s mix of Britpop and trip-hop was orchestrated by a little-known person named Ricky Gervais, partner of the show’s producer Gene Fallon, three years before he began his on-screen career. Gervais was credited as a “musical consultant”, and commissioned the guitar ringtone by Way Out.

Who did Jenkins enjoy writing for the most? “Anna, because she had the energy of the main character. I liked Eg too. He was a kind of ‘new boy’, who had feelings and loved football. He idolized Eric Cantona and wanted to be a novelist. I’m not sure we’ve ever seen that on TV before. After all, the middle classes didn’t discover football until after Euro 96 and Nick Hornby.”

As well as being a cultural touchstone, the show has discovered a generation of talent. Zombie Lincoln will slay his way to global fame in The Walking Dead. Davenport has been a regular presence in films (particularly the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise) and television (from Coupling to The Morning Show). So did Natasha Little, who played troublemaker Rachel. Jason Hughes spent eight years as a detective on moderate homicides. Martin Freeman and a baby-faced Jodie Whittaker (she was in the 2007 reunion special) appear in early roles.

Along with the powerhouse duo of Gervais/Fallon, behind the camera were the likes of Amelia Bullmore, Joe Ahern, and Matthew Graham (later co-creator of Life on Mars). Jenkins would become a novelist and writer for The Crown, while Garnett’s World Productions continued to produce Line of Duty.

Pioneering in style and content, This Life reinvented television drama, ushering in a wave of exciting series about urban professionals. “We inspired a whole bunch of great shows that came after that,” Jenkins says. “Cold Feet, Coupling, all the great Russell T Davies work. This Life has definitely moved the dial a little bit. The current show it reminds me of most is Industry. It has a strong This Life vibe.”

Thirty years later, the spirited lawyers are back. “It’s become like Dad’s Army,” Jenkins says. “When in doubt, the BBC repeats This Life! But it’s great that it’s still being caught. People often tell me they’ve begged their mothers to let them stay up late to watch it. I’ve even met people who went into law because of This Life. I’m always a little apologetic about that!”

Daniela Nardini presents a rerun of This Life on BBC Four at 10pm. Both series and the 10 Year Reunion special are available on iPlayer