After Life
The third season of Ricky Gervais’s wellreceived comedy-drama about loss, grief and trying to keep on living continues to explore those themes in an honest and forthright way.
Gervais, who also writes the script, plays central character Tony, a grieving local newspaper journalist who is struggling to cope after the death of his beloved wife (a lovely warm performance from Kerry Godliman, appearing in flashback). As a cynic, Tony’s natural instinct is to become ever more misanthropic and cruel, but he begins to realise that perhaps there is something to be said for kindness and tolerance.
Gervais is one of those divisive figures (full disclosure: I’m not a big fan) and how much you enjoy this will depend very much on your feelings about his brand of comedy. The uneven tone often lurches clumsily from dark humour to saccharine sentimentality but it helps enormously that Gervais has assembled a cracking supporting cast that includes Ashley Jensen, David Bradley, Penelope, Wilton and Diane Morgan.