In the mid-90s, it seemed like every creative industry in this country had been touched by the magic of Cool Britannia. If there was Blur and Oasis in music, Damian Hirst and Tracey Emin in art and Trainspotting in cinema, then the small screen’s contribution to the national, flag-waving mood was BBC Two’s This Life.
Few TV series of that era were as much talked about and of the moment as Amy Jenkins’ short-lived drama – it ran from 1996 to 1997 – about a group of trainee solicitors in London. And of course, it made real stars out of its cast, mostly unknown in their twenties when the series first aired on March 18, ’96.
So what happened to the cast of this culture-quake TV show? As you can see, it’s a tale of mixed fortunes, with several cast members eclipsing their This Life fame with even bigger successes across the Atlantic…
Jack Davenport – Miles Stewart
This Life may have been Jack Davenport’s first television gig, but as the son of Howard’s Way’s Jack Davenport and A Fish Called Wanda’s Maria Atiken, it was clear that acting was in his blood.
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Immediately following This Life, Davenport took the lead role in the Channel 4 vampire drama Ultraviolet (1998) and starred in the film adaptation of The Talented Mr Ripley (1999), directed by Anthony Minghella. He also appeared as Commodore James Norrington in three Pirates of the Caribbean films and was a series regular in Steven Moffat’s relationship sitcom Coupling (2000–2004).
Like many of his This Life castmates, Davenport returned for a one-off reunion special called +10 in 2007, but most of his work over the past 20 years has been in the US, appearing in series such as FlashForward, Breathless and Swingtown. He can currently be seen on Apple TV+’s The Morning Show as the ex-husband of Jennifer Aniston’s character.
Daniela Nardini – Anna Forbes
Daniela Nardini, one of the shining stars of the series This Life, won the BAFTA Best Actress award for this role in 1998. After the series ended, she starred in the Amy Jenkins-penned film Elephant Juice (1999) and in 2012 joined the cast of BBC One’s Waterloo Road for a four-episode role.
She can be seen in films such as Festival (2005), Sunshine on Leith (2013) and Terence Davies’ Sunset Song (2015). Nardini took a break from acting after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2019, from which she made a full recovery.
“I love that people still enjoy the show,” she told the Daily Mail at the time, “but This Life feels like another life now. It was so exciting and intoxicating at the time. We all became quite famous very quickly because of it, which was a shock and a bit scary.”
Jason Hughes-Warren Jones
In 1996, it was still rare to see an openly gay character on television, and so This Life’s Warren Jones was groundbreaking in its own way, in terms of representation, similar to what Queer as Folk would be just three years later.
It wasn’t Jason Hughes’ first TV role, but it was the actor’s big break, opening the door to roles in prestige dramas such as Waking The Dead and Russell T Davies’ Mine All Mine. But Hughes’ most famous role came in 2005 when he starred opposite John Nettles in ITV’s ever-popular Midsomer Murders, playing DS Ben Jones for eight seasons.
Since then she has appeared in series such as Death in Paradise, The Pact, Marcella and most recently McDonald & Dodds.
Amita Dhiri – Djamila ‘Milly’ Nassim
Amita Dhiri won the role of Milly (aka ‘the sane one’) in This Life just three years after graduating from drama school. After her final regular role, she was cast as one of the leads in ITV’s post-apocalyptic drama The Last Train (1998).
Her other notable regular role was in ITV’s The Bill, where she made her debut in 2007 as DC Grace Dasari, remaining with the series until its final episode in 2010. Her most recent television appearance was in Netflix’s Bridgerton, where she played Mrs Khanna, the housekeeper at the Kent estate.
Andrew Lincoln – Edgar ‘Egg’ Cooke
Andrew Lincoln, 23, had only a handful of TV roles under his belt when he was cast as Milly’s boyfriend Egg in This Life.
After the series ended, the actor had a front-row role in Richard Curtis’ Love Actually (2003) and a leading role as university lecturer Robert Bridge in ITV’s supernatural drama Afterlife (2005–6). In 2010, he debuted as police officer Rick Grimes in the first episode of AMC’s zombie drama The Walking Dead, and currently plays that role in the spin-off series The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live.
During this period, he appeared in films such as Human Traffic (1999), Enduring Love (2004) and Penguin Bloom (2020), and next starred alongside Bathonian Indira Varma in the ITV thriller Cold Water.
Ramon Tikaram – Ferdinand ‘Ferdy’ Garcia
Since starring as motorbike courier Ferdy in This Life, Ramon Tikaram (the reality-obsessed brother of ’80s singer-songwriter Tanita) has had a prolific career in television (Game of Thrones, Death in Paradise, Brassic, Fortitude), film (Dean Spanley, Mischief Night, Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love) and stage (playing the King of Siam in the UK tour of The King and I).
He has also made a name for himself in video games, voicing characters in RPGs such as James Bond 007: Blood Stone, Harmony: The Fall of Reverie and League of Legends. One of Tikaram’s most notable roles in the last few years was as the Commander of the Yorkshire Police District in the BBC One drama Happy Valley.
He was one of the regular cast members absent from This Life in the 2007 special, due to the episode revolving around his character’s funeral.
This Life airs on ITVX Premium.