Staged is a British TV series that was first broadcast on The BBC in June 2020, during the COVID-19 Pandemic. It is set during the aforementioned pandemic and stars David Tennant and Michael Sheen. It ran for six 15-minute episodes, which were later released on Netflix as significantly extended versions. A second series of eight episodes followed in early 2021, with a third series in 2022.
The setup for season 1 is that all the theatres are closed due to the pandemic. But Simon, who's planning a version of of Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author, has the idea to rehearse anyway via conference calling so that they will be ready to get into theatres the moment they reopen, and benefit from a theatre audience eager to be back. The plot follows the high-jinx that ensue as the big name stars struggle with keeping focused, and how they live their lives during lockdown.
Season 2's premise is that the first season was so popular it is being remade for the USA, and Michael and David are the last people to find out. Filming is due to take place over there, so David and Michael are keen to make sure it happens with them so that they can break the monotony of pandemic quarantine.
An eight minute New Year message
appeared on 31 December 2021.
Series 3 sees the duo reluctantly persuaded to help Simon create one more season. It swiftly goes off the rails in many different ways.
It is sweet, and funny, and the real chemistry between David and Michael (or Michael and David?) really shines through.
The cast is:
- Simon Evans as himself, the director of the play. He also wrote and directed Staged.
- David Tennant as himself, an actor in the play.
- Michael Sheen as himself, an actor in the play.
- Georgia Tennant as herself, David's wife.
- Anna Lundberg as herself, Michael's partner.
- Lucy Eaton as herself, Simon's sister.
It also has recurring guest roles of:
- Nina Sosanya as Jo, who is financing the whole thing, in series 1 and as herself (series 2 and 3).
- Rebecca Gage as Janine, Jo's assistant. She is never seen onscreen (series 1).
- Whoopi Goldberg as Mary, Michael and David's agent (series 2).
- Ben Schwartz as Tom, Mary's assistant (series 2) and himself (series 3).
And some special guests show up for single episode appearances:
- Samuel L. Jackson as himself.
- Adrian Lester as himself.
- Dame Judi Dench as herself.
- Neil Gaiman as himself.
This series provides examples of:
- Actor Allusion: Not surprising really. But David and Michael do often talk about their previous acting roles.
- Always Someone Better: Michael and David are stars in the UK, and behave accordingly. When faced with Dame Judi Dench and Samuel L. Jackson, though, they become deferential fast. This then becomes the premise of season 2, as they are replaced by more well-known actors for an American remake.
- Ambiguously Gay: There's a few hints that Tom's idolisation of David is a bit more than that. Particularly when he talks to Georgia and, on realising who she is, immediately blurts out "So you've made love to him."
- As Himself: All but a few characters, although caricatured or parodied somewhat. Particularly prevalent in the string of actors auditioning to play David and Michael in the remake:Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.Hugh Bonneville and Ken Jeong.Jim Parsons and Josh Gad.
- Bathroom Stall of Overheard Insults: Done over the phone. Deliberately invoked later.
- Behavioral Conditioning: In S2, Phoebe Waller-Bridge reveals that David has done this to her, conditioning her to need the toilet whenever his phone text alert sounds. It almost ruined her career and she only recovered it by creating Fleabag.
- Bottle Episode: Literally as they're all stuck in their various homes. Figuratively in that bottles feature large in Michael's relationship with his neighbour.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall:
- The second series is based on acknowledging that the first series was a fictional TV show, starting with Michael and David being interviewed about it on a Zoom-based chat show and getting steadily more meta from there, with a story arc about Michael and David being recast for the American remake.
- Series three takes it further at the end of the second episode after a technical zoom issue arises it’s revealed that the entire first episode and most of the second have been a scripted show within a show. The rest of the series then turns into a supposed behind the scenes documentary about the making of series three (the documentary itself being yet another show within a show as the whole thing is actually scripted). The entire show becomes more and more meta, revealing that series two was also a scripted show within a show with actors who appeared in series two as other characters showing up in series three playing themselves.
- Broken Pedestal: Both Michael and David are clearly disappointed and later annoyed when Michael Palin is dismissive of the apparently improvisational style of the first season, unfavourably contrasting it to Monty Python’s tightly scripted approach to making comedy.
- Call-Back:
- The conversations that happen before the opening credits pretty much always affect what happens just before the closing credits.
- Spelling words backwards in your head.
- The Cookie Jar from the opening episode gets a callback right at the end of the final episode.
- Conspiracy Theorist: In the New Year short, David and Michael's reaction to the idea of a third season is "What do The BBC know?" — apparently, they've been reading online claims that the Beeb have advance warning of the lockdowns which is how the turnaround is so quick.
- Credits Gag: The arguments David and Michael have over this tend to affect the real-life credits.
- Each episode of the first series ends with Michael and David arguing about who should get top billing in the play. ("It's my turn - you were first in Good Omens"). Whatever they decide happens in the opening credits of the next episode. One starts "Starring David McDonald and Michael Sheen" because David Tennant said he would revert to his real surname to be first alphabetically. Another starts "Starring Michael Sheen & That F#!king Liar David Tennant" (because Michael had caught David lying and said his continued involvement would be conditional on David being credited thus).
- Curse Cut Short: At the end of the first episode, David is about to claim to Michael that Wikipedia says that he is a "cunt", but the episode cuts to the endboard before he can completely say it.
- Dirty Coward: Simon is afraid of everybody except David.
- Samuel L. Jackson chews David out for this after his failed attempt at double-crossing both him and Michael.
- Michael immediately rats out David to Mary.
- Gender Flip: In-universe, the final casting of the US version is Cate Blanchett and Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Martin Freeman is in talks to play "George".
- The Ghost: Michael's elderly neighbor.
- Have We Met?: Michael reminds Samuel L. Jackson they've worked together before, but he doesn't remember him. It turns out this is because Michael had a bag on his head.
- Meta Sequel: The second series is based around acknowledging that the first series was scripted entertainment.
- The third series doubles down, and starts off as a Show Within a Show, with production halting part way though due to Creative Differences, and then the behind-the-scenes of the Show Within a Show.
- Never Heard That One Before: 2x08 has an offscreen taxi driver make a joking comparison of Georgia and David's front door (blue, with windows) to the TARDIS. Georgia manages to restrain her eyes from rolling all the way back into her head while giving this response word for word.
- "Not So Different" Remark: The closing credits of Season 2, Episode 3 are of Nick Frost and Simon Pegg having a conversation in which they agree they don't want to end up like David and Michael, while discussing their billing in the same way as Michael and David do throughout the Season 1 credits, and resolving their argument earlier in the episode by playing video games, similar to Battleship in Season 1, episode 4.
- Parenting the Husband: David seems to be totally unable to cook, doesn't know when to change his clothes, and isn't knowledgeable enough to teach his children what they need at school, so these things all seem to fall on Georgia. He does try, but is rarely successful. He even ends up stood facing the wall in penance for lying, like a naughty child. It Makes Sense in Context. Georgia, meanwhile, has finished writing a novel in the free time she somehow has. Michael and David at some point talk about how much they miss being coddled on set by the crew.
- Precision F-Strike: David's response to Dame Judi Dench's first appearance. And both David and Michael are speechless for a good while after Judi bluntly tells them to "Stop fucking about!"
- Real Life Writes the Plot: The Covid-19 pandemic provides a backdrop for the show, and the motivation for writing it. It also gives a reason for the various characters to only interact through video conferencing, so it can be filmed that way. Also, the writer/director was about to start rehearsing a real play when production was shut down due to lockdown, just like in this show.
- The initial set-up, in which Simon asks David to get Michael involved, is how Michael Sheen was actually invited to join the cast.
- The second series features much fewer scenes with both Anna and Michael, because whilst their daughter was a baby during the first series she was walking by the time of the second, and whenever one was filming the other needed to be looking after her.
- Reality Is Unrealistic: A Running Gag in the second season is that nobody who watched the first season believes David and Michael made convincing friends.
- Ripped from the Headlines: The entire premise of the show.
- Running Gag:
- The argument over who gets their name first in the credits. Doubles as Truth in Television and spills over into several credits gags.
- Individual episodes tend to get their own running gags.
- Self-Deprecation: The premise of the entire series. In particular, since he's writing it, Evans portraying himself as a Dirty Coward nobody likes, and a scene in the second season where Georgia, Anna and Lucy discuss how bad he is at writing women.
- Show Within a Show: The second series begins with David and Michael being interviewed for the fictitious (and, as with the show itself, Zoom-based) entertainment show "Romesh Ranganathan's 6 Months of Lockdown".
- Tempting Cookie Jar: A rehearsal exercise about a cookie jar bookends the show.
- The Alcoholic: Michael certainly seems to be setting himself up as this, even using having got up in time to paint the dawn as an excuse to start drinking mid-afternoon (and come up with a scheme to dispose of the bottles), though in fairness everyone is drinking a lot under lockdown.
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Write What You Know: Writer and director Simon Evans wrote a series where his character is trying to write and direct a play.
