After Life named best modern comedy

Ricky Gervais’s show tops Radio Times poll

After Life has been named the best modern comedy in a new Radio Times poll.

Ricky Gervais’s Netflix show topped a list of the best-loved shows which started in 2010 or later, beating Mackenzie Crooks’ Detectorists into second place.

A panel of experts, including commissioners, writers and comedians, drew up a shortlist of 25 programmes, which were then put to a vote of the magazine’s readers.

Gervais ascribed the show’s success to it being on the world’s biggest streaming platform. Having 14million fans to draw from on X may have helped, too.

Speaking to the magazine, he said: ‘It resonated because everyone has been through something like it, and people like seeing themselves on telly.’

And explaining After Life’s genesis, he said: ‘It wasn’t meant to be about grief.

‘The idea came around 2017, when cancel culture meant people started being careful of what they said. I wanted to write a comedy about a bloke who doesn’t care any more.

‘I thought, Why wouldn’t you? If you were going to kill yourself and didn’t. Why were you going to? Because you thought you’d lost everything. And why didn’t you? Because the dog was hungry…. It all started from there, and it got deeper.’

Radio Times said they picked 2010 as the cut-off date to bar ‘treasured 21st-century series such as The Office, Gavin & Stacey and Peep Show’.

Senior drama writer David Craig explained: ‘Our aim was to produce a result distinct from any other polls we’ve seen in the past. In the process, we sought to elevate the next generation of "all-time greats".

‘British comedy has been one of our proudest exports for decades, but we can only protect its premier status for future generations if we celebrate recent efforts as enthusiastically as the genre-defining classics.’

The full top ten was: