''Back to Life'' is a British

dark Darkness, the direct opposite of lightness, is defined as a lack of illumination, an absence of visible light, or a surface that absorbs light, such as black or brown. Human vision is unable to distinguish colors in conditions of very low lu ...

comedy-drama co-written by

Laura Solon Laura Madalene Solon (born April 1979) is an English screenwriter, comedian, actress, and winner of the 2005 Perrier Comedy Award. She was the second woman to win as a solo performer, after Jenny Eclair in 1995. Background Solon was raised in G ...

and

Daisy Haggard Celia Daisy Morna Haggard (born 1978) is a British actress and writer. She is known for her roles in the BBC sitcoms ''Uncle'' and ''Episodes''. Haggard stars in BBC Three’s comedy-drama, '' Back to Life'', which she also created and co-wrot ...

and starring Haggard and

Adeel Akhtar Adeel Akhtar (born 18 September 1980) is a British actor. In 2017, he won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor for his role in ''Murdered by My Father''. He was also nominated for a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor for his role o ...

that premiered on

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...

on 15 April 2019. On 10 November 2019, the series premiered in the United States on

Showtime Showtime or Show Time may refer to: Film * ''Showtime'' (film), a 2002 American action/comedy film * ''Showtime'' (video), a 1995 live concert video by Blur Television Networks and channels * Showtime Networks, a division of Paramount Global w ...

. The first series received critical acclaim with many reviews highly praising the performance and writing of Haggard. On 19 November 2019, ''Back to Life'' was renewed for a second series; it premiered on 31 August 2021 to similar positive reviews.

Plot

Miri Matteson has just returned home to Hythe, Kent, after serving an 18-year prison sentence. As Miri attempts to rebuild her life, she forms a friendship with Billy, who cares for the elderly woman next door.

Cast

as Miri Matteson *

Geraldine James Geraldine James, OBE (born 6 July 1950) is an English film and television actress. Biography Early life and family James was born in Maidenhead, Berkshire, to a cardiologist father and an alcoholic mother, who had been a nurse. She failed her ...

as Caroline Matteson, Miri's mother *

Richard Durden Mark Richard Durden-Smith (born 8 February 1944), known as Richard Durden, is an English actor, with a range of television, film and stage credits. Personal life Durden-Smith was educated at Haileybury and Imperial Service College and Merton ...

as Oscar Matteson, Miri's father *

as Billy, Miri's budding love interest *

Jo Martin Jo Martin (born 29 April) is a British actress. She played Natalie Crouch in the BBC One sitcom '' The Crouches'', which aired between 2003 and 2005. She joined the cast of ''Holby City'' in 2019 as neurosurgeon Max McGerry. Martin portrayed a ...

as Janice, Miri's parole officer *Jamie Michie as Dom, Miri's now married pre-prison boyfriend and Caroline's secret affair *

Christine Bottomley Christine Bottomley (born 27 April 1979) is an English actress. Early life Born in Rochdale and grew up in an apartment above the family's chemist shop. She went to several local youth drama groups before embarking on a course at the Royal S ...

as Mandy, Miri's now married pre-prison best friend *

Juliet Cowan Juliet Cowan (born 21 May 1974 in Belfast, Northern Ireland) is a British television, film and stage actress. Cowan has had various TV guest star roles in long-running shows such as ''EastEnders'', ''Silent Witness'' and '' Casualty''. Cowan has ...

as Tina, local policewoman who was Miri’s childhood enemy *Imogen Gurney as Lara, Miri's former best friend * Liam Williams as Nathan, Miri's boss at the fish and chip shop (series 1) * Souad Adel Faress as Anna, Billy's wife (series 1) *Frank Feys as Samuel, a private investigator (series 1) *

Ade Edmondson Adrian Charles Edmondson (born 24 January 1957) is an English actor, comedian, musician, writer and television presenter. He was part of the alternative comedy boom in the early 1980s and had roles in the television series '' The Young Ones'' (1 ...

as John Boback, Lara’s father (series 2) *Lizzy McInnerny as Norah Boback, Lara’s mother (series 2) *

Meera Syal Meera Syal FRSL (born Feroza Syal; 27 June 1961) is a English comedian, writer, playwright, singer, journalist and actress. She rose to prominence as one of the team that created '' Goodness Gracious Me'' and portraying Sanjeev's grandmother, ...

as Gaia, Billy's mum (series 2)

Episodes

Series 1 (2019)

Series 2 (2021)

Production

Harry and Jack Williams are the executive producers of ''Back to Life'' with Sarah Hammond. They previously produced the BBC show ''

Fleabag ''Fleabag'' is a British comedy-drama television series created and written by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, based on her one-woman show first performed in 2013 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It was originally produced by Two Brothers Pictures for d ...

''. Various scenes for both series were filmed in

Hythe Hythe, from Anglo-Saxon ''hȳð'', may refer to a landing-place, port or haven, either as an element in a toponym, such as Rotherhithe in London, or to: Places Australia * Hythe, Tasmania Canada *Hythe, Alberta, a village in Canada England * T ...

and

Lydd-on-Sea Lydd-on-Sea is a modern village, mostly built after World War II, which consists mainly of bungalows built along the Dungeness coastal road south of Greatstone, Kent, England. The Southern Railway opened a railway station here in 1937 but was c ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

Dungeness Dungeness () is a headland on the coast of Kent, England, formed largely of a shingle beach in the form of a cuspate foreland. It shelters a large area of low-lying land, Romney Marsh. Dungeness spans Dungeness Nuclear Power Station, the hamlet ...

features in Series One and Folkestone Harbour Arm doubles as the Pier and Lighthouse in Series Two. The Abbot's Cliff sound mirror in Dover, on top of the

White Cliffs of Dover The White Cliffs of Dover is the region of English coastline facing the Strait of Dover and France. The cliff face, which reaches a height of , owes its striking appearance to its composition of chalk accented by streaks of black flint, depos ...

, feature in both series.

Release

''Back to Life'' was launched as a boxset on BBC iPlayer on 15 April 2019, and was shown weekly on

from 15 April 2019.

Reception

The show has received critical acclaim. For the first series,

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

reported a 100% approval rating with an average rating of 8.4/10, based on 26 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "Driven by the marvelous

, ''Back to Life'' questions what it means to be a person with humor, heart, and a genuine sense of surprise." The first series was also compared positively to critically acclaimed

tragicomedy Tragicomedy is a literary genre that blends aspects of both tragic and comic forms. Most often seen in dramatic literature, the term can describe either a tragic play which contains enough comic elements to lighten the overall mood or a seriou ...

''Fleabag'' with which it shares producers.

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 88 out of 100 based on 14 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". For the second series, Rotten Tomatoes reported a 100% approval rating with an average rating of 8.8/10, based on 5 critic reviews. Metacritic assigned a score of 87 out of 100 based on 6 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Home media

References

External links

* * {{Showtime Network programming 2010s British comedy-drama television series 2020s British comedy-drama television series 2019 British television series debuts BBC Television shows British comedy-drama television shows English-language television shows Television shows set in Kent Television shows shot in Kent Television series by All3Media