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One of the greatest delights out of lockdown last year was the seemingly improvisation, absurdist comedy from actors and real-life friends David Tennant and Michael Sheen.
Playing heightened versions of themselves stuck in lockdown and forced to rehearse a play over zoom, Staged tapped into the neuroses and ego-trips of stars – and took full advantage of Sheen and Tennant’s natural chemistry.
You never would’ve believed that starring at two whiny and bickering actors could be so funny.
What was meant to be a six-episode special returns with a second season, and the whole thing becomes even more meta – and even more laugh-out-loud funny. Yes, actual audible laughs.
Now, they’re not just two actors playing exaggerated versions of themselves, Sheen and Tennant are playing fictionalised versions of themselves who played exaggerated versions of themselves in a TV series called Staged.
If that seems a little too box-within-a-box, in which actors such as Nina Sosanya who previously played fictional characters but are now playing themselves, let me explain.
Or, at least I’ll try to – and for the purposes of some kind of clarity, when it’s Sheen and Tennant, I’m referring to the actual actors and when it’s Michael and David, it’s their fictionalised on-screen versions.
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Season two starts with Michael and David doing publicity for Staged on a talk show, supposedly as the real version of themselves. But we soon learn that this too is, of course, just another narrative framing device.
Now, these versions of Michael and David are faced with the prospect of Staged being remade for the American market – the fact the Americans are constantly remaking English-language shows from other English-language countries with an American twist is a whole other thing we can get into another time.
The prospect of an American remake excites them both, who are eager to work. Lockdowns are dragging on and the planned trips overseas to New York City and South Africa have been cancelled.
And Tennant has previously replayed a character he originated in a British series (Broadchurch) in an American remake (Gracepoint).
Then Michael and David find out they’re not considered well-known enough to replay themselves in the American version. Imagine the humour you can mine from the fragility of those shattered egos in discovering they will be recast.
Names such as Colin Firth and Hugh Grant are bandied about while cameos that turn up throughout this new eight-episode batch include Ken Jeong, Ben Schwartz, Hugh Bonneville, Nick Frost, Simon Pegg, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Michael Palin, Ewan McGregor, Cate Blanchett and Whoopi Goldberg.
Most of them are playing versions of themselves while others are playing fictional characters, such as Goldberg as Michael and David’s American agent.
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Each episode is a brisk 22 minutes and there’s a more dynamic energy this time with the pair fuelled more by resentment than the bouts of pandemic malaise they often slipped into in season one.
Most significantly, it’s very, very funny.
Sheen and Tennant are not precious about taking the piss out of themselves, unafraid at being seen as petulant manbabies, even as more and more people are exposed to their fictional selves’ pity party.
Staged is so effective because it strikes at what we have all suspected of pampered actors and the odd little bubbles they must live in. It’s funny because you just know there is truth to every scene.
While this season becomes less about the flow-on effects of the pandemic on our mental states and more a story that satirises the entertainment industry, there is so much joy and cackling to be found in these pleasurable episodes.
Staged seasons one and two are streaming now on iview
Share your TV and movies obsessions | @wenleima
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