The show that broke TV’s laws
Actor Jack Davenport lifts the lid on muchloved 1990s ‘‘Cool Britannia’’ legal drama This Life.
‘‘For all of us, it was really our first meaningful acting job. We were all sort of terrified and excited at the same time and all completely taken back when it became successful.’’
My memories are very fond, if a little hazy at this point. It was 22 years ago. For all of us, it was really our first meaningful acting job. We were all sort of terrified and excited at the same time and all completely taken back when it became successful.
In some ways, it was a very formative period for all of us.
We learned how to do the job that we do and by British TV standards there were a lot of episodes (32 over two seasons).
We also had to learn to cope with its success – which can present its own set of problems and pleasures as well. Why was it a success? I think it was to do with quality writing.
What was notable was that it was a show about young people starting out which didn’t either patronise that audience or moralise to them.
God knows the world has moved on now, but this was 20 years ago, so to show people taking drugs and not dying and generally having a good time, or people having sex and not either having a pregnancy scare or getting a terrible sexually transmitted disease was unusual.
It didn’t take a position on things that young people get up to, that are meant to be sort of somehow morally suspect.
The truth is, young people don’t think of them that way – they just think of them as s... to do when you’re young.
To be perfectly honest, while I did a bunch of movies I suppose that were pretty big, only Andy [Lincoln] has really been in anything else [The Walking Dead] that has sort of caught the zeitgeist quite so comprehensively since.
I feel like I moved on pretty quickly from Miles.
But while it hasn’t stuck with me, I think for other people maybe, that show meant a lot to people at the time.
Certainly journalists talk about it a lot.
I’ve wondered about this over the years. In the work hard, play hard stakes, journalists and lawyers are somewhat peas in a pod.
Somebody said to me journalists thought it was all about them, or they recognised themselves in it.
Maybe that’s why it did get an awful lot of press coverage at the time.
Now I think about, the only time I’m ever reminded of it is by journalists. – As told to James Croot. ● Jack Davenport is currently starring in the Kiwi-shot western The Stolen.