Netflix's After Life Review: 6 Ups & 3 Downs

Ups

6. The Supporting Cast

What Ricky Gervais has always been great at is bringing in great supporting actors for his shows. Perhaps it's because his heightened profile makes the opportunities to star alongside him even more appealing? Whatever the reason, After Life's cast working alongside him is thoroughly brilliant.

He's called in veterans of his other projects - most notably Ashley Jensen from Extras, Joe Wilkinson, Kerry Godliman and David Earl from Derek and Mandeep Dhillon and Diane Morgan from the David Brent movie - and called on some new players, like Tom Basden, David Bradley and Paul Kaye. Everyone old has great chemistry with Gervais already, which is clearly key, and everyone new is already established.

To a person, they're excellent, balancing out Tony's nastiness and eventually giving him reason to be better. The best performances come from Basden as his well-meaning brother-in-law, Kaye as his sh*tbag therapist, Roisin Conaty as a new friend and sex worker and Penelope Wilton as Anne, a fellow bereaved woman he meets by his wife's grave. But really, there's nothing to fault any of them and the way they each introduce different levels of personality is simple genius.