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My tuppence worth on the farce that was This Life + 10

posted 17 years ago by stephen-alford1
4 replies | jump to latest

I loved this show very much. I watched it in 96 & 97 and subsequently every single time it was aired on tv, whether it was on the BBC or cable. I bought the two series' on DVD in December and watched them back to back over a few nights. So folks, I was ready for the reunion. What absolute f#cking garbage it was. There's no way in hell Miles would've abandoned his career as a barrister. He loved doing that for a living. It suited his arrogance and self belief to have such a high profile career. Warren was played far too camp by Jason Hughes. Warren was never like that before. He was a decent, caring human being who just happened to be gay. He very rarely minced about unless he was having a laugh. If he did eventually get together with Ferdy, there's no way he would've behaved like that. Ferdy hated overt gayness like that. Milly? Hell would've frozen over rather than her become a meek little homemaker. Law was her life to a great extent. She was growing away from Egg and I don't think she would've got together with him after he knew she shagged O'Donnell, although I could be wrong there - people are strange. Egg? There's no evidence from the first two series that he could've penned a book, his earlier attempts at it were terrible. I know he must've been reasonably intelligent to earn a degree but his writing was rotten. Did you see his performance at explaining his own book at the launch? His character was all over the place.

Finally Anna. Maybe closest to what she might've turned out like. A success story in law, but a shambles of a private life. I don't think she would've lost touch with Milly because of the child issue. However she's probably the one I've got the least to complain about.

My final thought's are about the venue. A country mansion? The thing I loved about the 90s shows were the London setting. They were all from major cities, except for Warren who was at least from a town, and I felt they were at home in a bustling environment and the scenes in busy pubs with good music in the background were brilliant.

This is what I think. Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know.

What do others think?

[–] fatsharvis 17 years ago

Were all the characters really "from major cities"? Perhaps I missed these being specified, but, apart from Milly coming from North London and Egg from Manchester, I don't recall other home towns being mentioned by name. As far as I remember, Miles was said to hail from somewhere in the Home Counties, Anna was merely generically Scottish, and Warren was generically Welsh - albeit, as you say, with a few oblique references to coming from a town. Maybe their roots were detailed in press coverage (which might be where I heard Egg was Mancunian) rather than the actual scripts, though.

Meanwhile I assume, perhaps mistakenly, that most of the supposedly minor characters (Kira, Kelly, Jo, Ferdy etc) were from London or at least the Greater London area, judging by their accents and because this sort of character is portrayed as having less career ambition/mobility than the professional aspirations of the core yuppies. On the other hand, it could simply be that the unambitious locals already lived near the nerve centre of the UK law sector, so why move?

[–] stephen-alford1 17 years ago

Anna was Glaswegian. Greater Glasgow population = 850,000, Glasgow City population = 600,000. Feeble compared to London obviously, but I'd say that was a big town.

Let's be honest, the country mansion setting was a complete turkey. What a bad idea.

[–] Blue_the_janitor 8 years ago

I agree with everything you said except for the bit with Egg. Just because someone is crap at writing a book in their early 20's doesn't mean they will suck at it forever. People grow, you know. I haven't actually seen this so I don't know whether he has grown or evolved in any way, I'm just assuming that he would, over 10 years. I'm pretty sure his writing skills would have improved over time.

[–] ryanbowden1985 8 years ago

About Egg his initial degree was in English before going on to his law degree it's mentioned in one episode maybe at the job centre and your first book or novels are generally poor until you find your voice as with anything you improve with practice. Also his book reflected real events of his life rather than the fantastical theme of his book in season 1. His dedication to writing is the hard bit but after Milly cheating he may of reflected on his life choices.