Staged

In March 2020, the UK went into its first pandemic lockdown as the government tried to limit the spread of Covid-19.

Everyone was impacted, from parents who suddenly had to learn how to homeschool their children to businesses scrambling to find a way to stay afloat.

It was a time of enormous stress and yet, for some creatives, it was a golden opportunity to do something completely different.

For podcast fans, it gave rise to the US celebrity interview show Smartless, while in the UK we were gifted this gem of a series, starring Michael Sheen and David Tennant (or perhaps that should be David Tennant and Michael Sheen…) as fictional versions of themselves.

The first run was filmed mostly using video conferencing software, proving ordinary mortals weren’t the only ones getting to grips with this sometimes infuriating new technology, and focused on fictionalised versions of the Celtic thesps.

Speaking about the series, Michael said: “We didn’t take ourselves too seriously, and we laughed at ourselves,” while David added: “People obviously recognised themselves in these characters and what they were going through.”

Season one followed Tennant and Sheen as they tried to rehearse a performance of Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author, while director Simon Evans did his best to keep the two stars on some sort of even keel.

It aired for the first time in June 2020 and UK critics fell over themselves to praise it, dubbing it “compelling ‘lockdown’ television”, a “welcome distraction” and “charming”.

A year later the second series hit screens, this time following the ‘real’ Michael and David as enjoyed the success of Staged, despite not being asked to feature in the US remake, being worked on by Simon.

It was liberally sprinkled with a galaxy of star guests, including Cate Blanchett, Simon Pegg, Ewan McGregor and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, but was met by a somewhat cooler reception.

The pressure may be on for this third season to deliver, but all indications are it’s going to hit the bullseye.

This time around, Simon is doing his best to persuade Michael and David to agree to a Christmas staged version of Six Characters in Search of an Author, and later A Christmas Carol. However, as the episodes unfold, it morphs into a metafictional behind-the-scenes documentary of the show entitled Backstaged.

The series kicks off with a double bill, and in the opener, David and Michael are keen to move on to new things after putting the ups and downs of lockdown firmly behind them. They’re not sure they want to work with each other, much less Simon, whose career has stalled.

So, when the latter proposes getting the gang back together, they’re having none of it – until Lucy teaches her brother four magic words that could well change the stubborn theps’s minds.

Next, Simon grapples with an impossible decision: will Michael or David play Scrooge, and how will he break the news? Meanwhile, David, who is stuck in Japan, needs someone to check out the London restaurant where he’s hoping to hold a surprise party for his wife Georgia on her birthday, which happens to be Christmas day.

Keep your eyes peeled for the usual array of famous faces popping up, including Olivia Colman and Neil Gaiman.