AFTER LIFE
DISCLAIMER: I don’t like Ricky Gervais. I never watched The Office, I wasn’t religious about watching Extras and I think the only stand up of his I’ve seen is Animals. I don’t like Ricky Gervais because he decided that his onstage persona was that of an arrogant arsehole - which would be a nice segue into After Life if it wasn’t for the fact that I’m not finished. The first time that I saw this persona was during Comic Relief many years ago when the character Ricky Gervais decided to go to New York instead of a developing country. Don’t get me wrong, I got the schtick. I just didn’t find it funny. I didn’t find him funny. And thus, as a comedian, I didn’t like him.
I wasn’t really planning on watching After Life because of the above, but I did. Today I was actually going to write about my initial thoughts on new ITV drama CHEAT, but having just watched the last episode of After Life, I felt compelled to write about this instead.
Ricky Gervais gives his character, Tony, license to be the arrogant arsehole Ricky Gervais by virtue of having his wife die of cancer. So we follow the story of Tony, post-wife’s death, battling depression, wanting to kill himself and conversing with an assortment of people who remind him, mostly, that life is for the living. I am susceptible to letting a story take me in and so, even though in the back of my head I’m going “this is just Ricky Gervais giving himself license to be Ricky Gervais through the guise of losing his wife”, I’m sold on it. I feel for Tony. Mostly because Gervais does a great job of showing Tony’s vulnerable moments. We need those, of course, to connect with him at his most arsehole level. As the writer (and director) of the whole series, Gervais allows Tony to have some of the most wry observations about life and death and everything in between and I think because it’s so eloquently written and expertly delivered, it’s hard not to like what he’s done here. As the writer, outside of the character Tony or persona Ricky Gervais, he brings up conversations I never thought someone like him would have or write about (as was my perception of him), such as addiction and sex work. I don’t know what it’s like living in a small “sleepy” town, but he does a great job of accentuating it’s quirkiness through all the characters he meets as a features writer for the local free newspaper. And it’s through those characters that he begins to have a bit more understanding about what he’s going through, such as when he meets a man who was sent five of the same birthday cards in the post in Episode 1.
I know this show is about Tony and I know it’s about his blinkered view of his feelings, his emotions, his loss, but one thing that did irk me throughout the series was the lack of self-awareness he had towards his boss, who also happens to be his brother-in-law, who also happens to have lost his sister to cancer, Tony’s wife. I get it and I know why it was done, but I just couldn’t help but feel for Matt, who is constantly doing his best to make Tony happy, but felt like no one was looking out for him, no one was caring for him or his feelings. He lost his sister. But it’s barely spoken about. But as I said, I know it’s Tony show and I know why it was set up like that, I just wanted to give Matt a cuddle.