VIRTUAL INSANITY (STAGED)

When the threat from Coronavirus eventually recedes, it will be fascinating to look back on the art, music, film, theatre and television that emerged during and after lockdown.

As the world has dramatically adjusted to the presence of Covid-19, not only has it posed a major threat to lives but also to livelihoods.

In the creative sector, the shutting down and gradual reopening of film sets, theatres, cinemas and live music venues has posed huge problems for performers and technical crew - financially and mentally.

At the very top, many celebrities have sought to ease the boredom by harnessing technology to entertain the masses direct from their homes.

Through shows like 'The One World' concert, 'Comic Relief' and across various chat shows, audiences have been given glimpses of the living rooms of celebrities like The Rolling Stones, Jon Stewart, Saoirse Ronan or the stars of 'Normal People' while they ply their trade.

Other stars like Chris Martin, Gary Lightbody, Sophie Ellis Bextor or the comedian Sarah Cooper have taken to Zoom, TikTok or Facebook Live to entertain the masses and provide some musical or comic relief.

Simon Evans and Phin Glynn's BBC1 sitcom 'Staged' responds to the cultural upheaval caused by the pandemic by creating a six episode show about celebrities living under lockdown.

The show is fashioned around the popular Scottish and Welsh actors David Tennant and Michael Sheen who play exaggerated versions of themselves a la John Malkovich, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon or Jean Claude Van Damme.

However the twist on a well worn formula is that all of the action is socially distanced and most of it is conducted over Zoom.

Tennant and Sheen's fictionalised versions of themselves are engaged by Evans' timid theatre director to spend time during lockdown rehearsing for a West End production of Luigi Pirandello's absurdist meta comedy 'Two Characters In Search of An Author' which, of course, is about actors rehearsing a play.

Evans' director Simon and Tennant believe if they use the time wisely for rehearsals, they will be able to hit the ground running when London reopens with a show that theatre starved West End audiences will lap up.

The duo initially trade off their screen chemistry from Amazon Prime's recent series 'Good Omens' but the banter and bonhomie soon gives way to brittle insecurities about who will get top billing, other potential cast members and who is the better actor.

It emerges early on that Sheen was not the first choice for his role and, as a result, the preparations go sour, with the Welshman taking his anger out on his Scottish counterpart.

Along the way, the duo find themselves talking to other celebrities like Adrian Lester, Samuel L Jackson and Judi Dench.

There are regular appearances too from Tennant's wife Georgia as herself, Sheen's girlfriend, Anna Lundberg and Lucy Eaton as Evans' sister.

Nina Sosanya pops up occasionally on Evans' screen as Jo, a financier who gets exasperated by the two stars' fragile egos and Rebecca Gage provides the off-camera voice of Jo's assistant, Janine.

Evans and Glynn and their undoubtedly game cast have come up with an amiable comedy that just about manages to avoid veering into the unbearably smug.

However it is hard not to compare and contrast it with Michael Winterbottom's brilliantly executed 'The Trip' which also trades on its stars, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon's comic improvisational skills and willingness to play insecure fictional versions of themselves.

Tennant and Sheen - or should that be Sheen and Tennant? - are wonderful actors who attack their roles with gusto.

But they can never quite deliver the belly laughs that Coogan and Brydon regularly muster - even when they are satirising the bizarre nature of life under lockdown.

Nor can their equally famous and talented friends Jackson, Lester and Dench or Evans and the rest of the cast raise more than a wistful smile during their contributions.

There are some nice running gags about Sheen being blackmailed by a neighbour in Port Talbot to do her shopping and return her library books after she catches him on her security camera  offloading his many empty bottles of wine into her recycling bin.

But even these do not go beyond being nice and you find yourself wishing there was just a bit more grit.

'Staged' is, of course, limited in how it depicts life in the time of Covid-19.

However Evans, who also directs the series, cleverly breaks up the episodes with eerie shots of abandoned West End streets, empty Californian beaches and quiet, lush Welsh fields.

It is arguably these images that justify 'Staged' as a series worth revisiting when we finally learn how to live with Covid-19.

With a bit of distance and perspective, they will serve as a poignant reminder of how the world ground to a halt during Covid-19 and just why we need comic relief from the horror of a virus that has killed hundreds of thousands of lives around the world.

Is there scope for another series of 'Staged'?

Certainly but it needs to hit its targets with even more vigour if it is to be regarded as a comedy classic.

('Staged' was broadcast on BBC1 on June 10-24, 2020)