Staged
A Welshman, Scotsman and an Englishman get on a zoom call
Where: Netflix When: 2020
Score: 4.5/5 Watch again: Yes
When did I watch: 10 September 2020 Language: English
Staged tells the story of a director (Simon Evans) who's play gets postponed due to the 2020 COVID-19 epidemic. He decides to continue rehearsing the play with the two actors he has cast David (David Tennant) and Michael (Michael Sheen). What follows is a stream of funny banter and fighting with the cast spread all over the UK and only communicate using Zoom. We see their interactions with the people they are locked down with the wife, girlfriend and sister, and a couple of familiar faces pop into course discord and heal rifts.
The main draw of this show was always going to be the comedic double act of David and Michael. We saw this banter on Good Omens, but here it feels less scripted and more like a glimpse into the way that they talk to each other. However, it is more like stage acting the TV acting as they sit inside their little Zoom boxes and overdo their facial expressions, as we all did during lockdown because we couldn't see the body langue of the person we were talking to. This overacting works even better as they are playing exaggerated versions of themselves.
Before Staged, I never liked media filmed as if from a webcam or other 'the camera is actually their filming'. Staged captures the energy of our time, and as I have adapted to seeing people in this format over Zoom, I was able to suspend my disbelief. They break this wall slightly when they filmed scenes inside their own homes and not in this webcam format. I understand how it fleshes out the plot and allows us to see the interactions between David and Georgia, Simon and Lucy, but I feel that this takes away from the point of the zoom calls. Michael is able to tell the most interesting story, and he doesn't move from the one spot the entire time whereas we see around the other main cast's houses in detail as if they were trying to show us every facet.
Although David and Michael are genuinely brilliant, the people who stood out to me are Simon, Georgia and Lucy. These three show the angst and reality of lockdown and provide a good deal of comedic relief, who could forget Georgia eating cake and telling David that she was doing yoga.
Although this is a comedy and allows us to laugh, it also acts as a social commentary on life in lockdown. It portrays the disastrous crimes against fashion we've all been waring because 'nobody can see me'. Also the sad but all too common bits like an elderly lady being so lonely that she has to blackmail her neighbour and then when something bad happens nobody notices. It also hints at what's to come as Michael's bottle story rings all to clear for many of us with drinking doubling during the lockdown.
Overall this is the best TV I've seen since lockdown started as it demonstrates the changes I see in myself. I loved it so much that I watched all six episodes in one sitting and then went back a week later and watched it all again.
