Ricky’s tragicomedy chimes with times
LET’S BE brutally honest, who would have thought shock comedian Ricky Gervais could ever have created an important comedy-drama for our times, and one which appears to have struck a genuine chord during the pandemic? But that’s been the effect of After Life (Netflix), the heart-breaking story of Tony (Gervais) who simply can’t get over the death of his wife from cancer – is it ever possible? It is a comedy, now in its third and apparently last season, about bereavement, but it’s also very funny, notwithstanding the liberal use of swears, including the C-word, which would embarrass a veteran trooper.
Tony, a local newspaper journalist, says and does the things that we wish we could do in moments of frustration.
The running gag through the series is about zebra crossings and how many drivers simply don’t stop.
In one instance, Tony throws a small potted cactus (don’t ask) through the back window of a passing Range Rover. That’s so satisfying on many counts. We should all carry with us a pet cactus at all times.
There are many fine ensemble performances from the likes of Tony Way as his photographer Lenny, and Diane Morgan, who embarks on a succession of hilariously disastrous dates. A sitcom within a sitcom.
Gervais’s scenes with the also bereaved Penelope Wilton on a bench in a graveyard are heartfelt and compelling too. That’s the serious bit!
Gervais says this is the final series but, with arguably an ambiguous ending (to be debated endlessly on Twitter), many will think it leaves the door ajar. Whether it comes back, it’s most definitely Gervais’s best work. It’s a three-hour emotional rollercoaster.
Now to the unique, and wonderful world of Vera (ITV, Sunday) – soon to open as an ITV theme park near Newcastle. Starring Brenda Blethyn and resuming with a new episode, the drama has become a beacon of light in a tiring world of message-driven, right-on dramas thrown together by cabals of earnest commissioning editors – who along the way have forgotten how to tell a story and entertain an audience.
Gratefully, Vera hasn’t done that, creating fine mysteries that aren’t easily solved in two hours. I could also follow every minute, without having to turn to someone in the room and go, “I think I missed who that character was… was I in the kitchen?”
It’s not ageist either, quite the opposite. As Vera was about to mount a set of steps into a stolen lorry, Paul Kaye’s marvellously mordant pathologist – it comes with the territory – offered a helping hand. “I can manage!” she said brusquely. Of course, we have no idea of the age of dear Vera. It doesn’t matter. She’s almost stuck in time – which we
applaud. Speaking of lorries, this was the first container port ever featured in Vera.
A security man made a startling effort to save another man’s life who was in the way of a speeding truck. What a selfless act, even for the plastic dummy which took the full force of the rig. Nice stunt. You clearly need eyes in the back of your head to survive in a container port.
Keep up the great work, Vera.
Can anyone follow Stay Close (Netflix)? A top-rated cast, including James Nesbitt, Jo Joyner, Eddie Izzard, Sarah Parish, Richard
Armitage and Cush Jumbo, is floundering about in a script that doesn’t know its start from its muddle.
At the end of episode four it’s a case of, ‘Is it worth committing another four hours?’ to the goings-on in Viper’s strip club, which is bizarrely situated in a lovely woodland glade somewhere near Blackpool.
Was that a new scheme by the local council to drive sex workers into more pleasant and healthier surrounds? Quite right. It’s possibly the only thing that makes sense in this confounding drama.
At least four people may have been murdered so far, near the sex club which, again bizarrely, has a very large car park. Maybe it also offers car valeting facilities. So, in this pleasant woodland, two, maybe three people have been slain, on the same day but in different years.
So they must be connected, says
James Nesbitt, the randy local detective who is very keen on Parish’s Lorraine, the “madam” of Vipers.
Then there’s Cush Jumbo’s central character “Cassie”, a former pole dancer at Vipers who, since becoming nice, middle-class Megan with an £80,000 BMW runabout, has never been recognised around town. Clearly all of Blackpool is keeping schtum about Cassie/ Megan who lives a very comfortable life although we know nothing about what she does, nor do we know anything about her husband – only that he’s pushed a suspicious car into a lake in an idle moment.
Still, if I find a spare four hours I will finish
Stay Close, the bonkers drama
of the year.