Ricky Gervais' After Life

I am 51. After years of deluding myself that I am still 35, I can no longer sustain the illusion. The scale, and the mirror, beg to differ.

At this age, one begins to notice a curious phenomenon. You cannot remember the last wedding you went to, but there are many funerals, much more recent. Death is becoming a hovering reality. Now, living in a plague year, it is more so than ever before.

If you are religious, you’ve probably got this all figured out. The promise of everlasting life awaits, should you be nice and not naughty. Religion is not very good at a lot of things, but on the question of life after death, it excels.

Yes, there is more to it. You will be repaid for all your suffering. There is no need to despair.

But what if you don’t believe that? What if you’re an agnostic, like me, doubtful of the prospect of an afterlife because there is no scientific reason to believe in one, you are at best feeling dreary about what is a few decades, at most, around the corner.

If you are an atheist like Ricky Gervais, there is nothing. The dead are most assuredly dead forever. Anything else is a fairy story for children.

If you’re perceptive, you can tell there is something different about this show’s approach, simply from looking at the title. The show is not called “Afterlife.” This would imply that there is life beyond the grave, besides the memories of the living and the works of posterity. No, Gervais calls his show “After Life.” The implication is that this show is about what happens after a life.

The result, a two-season series on Netflix, is, in my opinion, one of the most startling and original takes on life and death ever presented. It is, by turns, heartbreaking, and hilarious.

I have been a fan of Gervais since I first watched the UK version of “The Office” fifteen years ago. Then, I was in those magic mid-thirties, and the show reflected my pre-occupations of the time.

Sarcastic humour, office politics, romance, looking like an ass in front of everyone. It was a show for its time, but more importantly, a show for mine.

Now, my pre-occupations are different. Mortality looms. Love is less fleeting, and more damaging were it to be lost. So, I am quite capable of identifying with Tony, editor of the fictional Tambury Gazette, mourning the loss of his wife from cancer.

We never see his wife, Lisa (Kerry Godliman), in life. She exists only on the video clips Tony obsessively watches on his laptop. Lisa is clearly a person worth mourning, sweet, funny, selfless, and protective of Tony, thoughtfully making him a message prior to her death, reminding him of how to carry on living.

Tony is in a bind. Like Gervais, he is an atheist. He must find comfort, without fantasy. His struggle to do so is at the heart of After Life.

The secret, as it turns out, is other people. Which is also, Gervais clearly believes, the only true afterlife that there is.

In After Life, the sometimes bizarre inhabitants of the fictional Tambury are revealed, at first as one-sided twats, serving only to fuel Tony’s anger and resentment. His only real friend, it appears, is his German Shepard, Brandi. He visits his father, Ray (David Bradley), who is hollowed out by dementia, in a nursing home, but clearly resents the man’s vacancy.

Tony is alone, angry and resentful, only saved from suicide by Brandi, the closest thing to a guardian angel that the show has. His job consists of interviewing locals for not very interesting “human interest stories,” including a man who received five identical birthday cards; a foul-mouthed centenarian; a boy who plays two flutes with his nostrils; and a nearly blind man who’s been putting his letters to his sister in Australia in a dog shit bin for years. Tony’s utter boredom and lack of interest are as palpable as only Gervais can make them.

But in series one, Tony has a slow awakening. He begins to appreciate, rather than resent, the people around him. Even the least sympathetic characters, such as Brian, a disgusting hoarder, eventually turn out to have some sort of humanity. His brother in law, Matt (Tom Basden), is a brilliant creation, a soft man trying to be hard, with an ever-changing face and as desperate a need for Tony as Tony has for anyone else.

Other standouts are Paul Kaye as Tony’s psychiatrist, perhaps the only unredeemable character in the series, a nasty, careless, misogynistic prick; Penelope Wilton as Anne, an old widow whom Tony befriends in the graveyard; Tony Way as Lenny, a much set-upon but sedate and gentle co-worker of Tony’s; Roisin Conaty as a loveable sex worker who Tony hires to do his dishes; and last but not least, Mandeep Dhillon, a sensitive young journalist, stalled in life, and as utterly lost as Tony is, but for completely different reasons.

The message is a simple one: Everyone has problems. So, try and be a bit less of an asshole. And cherish the people you love when they are here, because you will have no new memories to make when they leave.

The message is all the more remarkable because it is delivered, not with ghosts and CGI visitations, but with video replays, music, and sad reminiscences. The laugh-out loud moments are balanced with moments of true emotion and despair. Gervais’ performance is deep and vulnerable, all the more remarkable because he is clearly not afraid to surround himself with an amazing supporting cast.

After Life postulates not the kind of afterlife we want, but the kind we’re going to get. We’ll leave a smoking crater in the lives of the people we love. One they’ll have to navigate around, or fill in. For those of us left, it’s a slow struggle between despair and “life goes on.”

Sorry to say, ladies and gents, that’s as much of an afterlife as we’re going to get.