Staged, review: thank goodness this thespy drama was short

The best thing about Staged (BBC Two) is that it only lasts 15 minutes. The format largely consists of two actors having meetings over Zoom, and anyone who has been forced to conduct work business in this way will know that not long after the quarter-of-an-hour mark you find yourself silently begging for the sweet release of death.

The actors in question are David Tennant and Michael Sheen. Or should that be Michael Sheen and David Tennant? At one point they have a tiff over whose name should go first on a poster. “No! You were first in Good Omens. It’s my turn,” Tennant protests. They are, rest assured, sending themselves up.

Why do actors love playing versions of themselves? I guess it cuts down on research time. It can be funny, and here it frequently is. Both are going slowly mad with lockdown boredom: Tennant a mixture of ennui and that particular kind of frazzled that comes from being a parent trapped in a house with children and no end in sight; Sheen more wild-eyed, feeling under siege from the birds in his garden. Their hairstyles largely correspond to their mental states. Their partners, Georgia Tennant and Anna Lundberg, also appear, which is a neat way of getting around lockdown casting restrictions.

I can’t say how far removed the screen Tennant and Sheen are from their real-life selves (although I once briefly met Tennant and found him to be lovely). But the danger with this sort of thing is that it risks coming across as a bit smug – “everyone knows I’m great, so let’s amusingly pretend I’m not!” See also: Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in The Trip.

The idea is that the pair were supposed to be appearing in Luigo Pirandello’s play, Six Characters in Search of an Author, before Covid came along. The play’s director, Simon Evans – also the director of this, of course – suggests that the trio start rehearsals over Zoom. Sheen is the trickier of the two actors, so Tennant has to cajole and flatter him into doing it.

Tennant and Sheen have decent chemistry, playing friends who are itchily competitive. Tennant has the better deal, cast as the less pretentious one (he also, if appearances are not deceptive, has the better house). Forty minutes of this would have been excruciating. Even 15 feels too long, but I don’t know if that’s because lockdown has ruined my attention span or if the show is a bit too thespy for its own good.