Image from The Digital Hash
After Life is the latest offering from actor, writer, comedian, director and producer Ricky Gervais. The show revolves around Tony, played by Gervais himself, a man whose wife just recently died of cancer. The series follows Tony, a local journalist, as he grapples with his tragic loss and suicidal thoughts. Although the storyline appears all doom and gloom, Ricky Gervais (as the star, writer and director) cleverly manages to weave in some classic quick-wit dialogue throughout. This creates an ingenious balance between heart-breaking moments and the brilliant British comedy we know and love.
Image from Digital Spy
After the death of his wife, Tony develops a devil-may-care attitude and regularly voices his opinions of others, from the postman to his father who resides in a Dementia care home. These moments of frustrated dialogue will have you in stitches and are the most entertaining part of the show as Gervais manages to perfectly express the things we all wish we could say to those people that irritate us. Over the course of the show, we see how Tony’s attitude changes throughout his grief in a way that really makes you take a step back and look at life and death. Personally, it’s been a while since a TV show has made me look at the way I live my life and consider making some changes.
After Life has received rave reviews across the board and is being praised on social media as being an accurate and honest representation of the grieving process faced by young widowers. One viewer, who is a member of the charity Widowed and Young (WAY) commented:
“As someone in the same boat, eight months widowed, it’s astonishing how well he’s captured this life. It almost feels like I wrote the script. The best compliment I can pay Ricky Gervais is it seems like he’s actually been widowed himself to capture this internal struggle of our life so well. It’s actually eerie.”Image from NBC News
Overall, After Life has tastefully, honestly (and hilariously) managed to capture aspects of depression, grief and life-after-loss that have been so blatantly missed in other series. The careful balance between making an audience laugh and cry has been so well struck by Gervais that even people that have never experienced loss have something to gain from this show. So grab the tissues (for tears of sadness and laughter) and get watching!