Life After Life ★★★★

Our story begins on two dark and snowy nights. Both are February 11, 1910. On both nights, Sylvie Todd goes into labour. On one night the doctor gets to the house before the birth. On the other, he never arrives, and Sylvie’s daughter Ursula dies, her umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. From these two separate strands of potential history, the strange and marvellous tale of Ursula Todd unfolds and unravels in all manner of directions.

Based on Kate Atkinson’s critically acclaimed novel, Life After Life is a lush period drama that asks questions about life, death, chance and how our existence is shaped, for good and ill, by our choices. Every decision we make takes our life down a different path, but we only get to make each decision once – as soon as we’ve started on one path, all the others vanish, potential realities that never got to be.

But what if (“what if”, the adult Ursula says in episode one, are the two most wonderful words in the language) those other paths did exist? What if, after one’s journey came to an end, one had the chance to try going a different way? This is how it is for Ursula, who dies many times, but keeps coming back to see whether different choices will lead to better outcomes.

Although not fully remembering her previous lives, she retains dim, instinctive recollections that help her navigate new lives and hopefully avoid the worst. Sometimes it takes a few goes: young Ursula sometimes has to die several times the same way before she can figure out how to dodge fate – and, of course, it’s not only Ursula’s own choices, but those of the people around her, that determine her course.

As one might imagine, Life After Life is not a cheerful series. We watch the main character die repeatedly, and there’s no Groundhog Day-esque playing for laughs here. Each death feels like a true tragedy, the putting-out of a little light in the world, and the fact the light is relit each time never entirely removes the sadness. Even in a reality where the dead get another chance, we feel, a death takes a little away from the world. There’s also the matter of the times being portrayed: Ursula’s life takes in two world wars, not to mention an epidemic and numerous personal bereavements.

For the leads of the cast, Life After Life is the kind of challenge great actors relish: to get to grips with characters living through multiple stories, with the challenges coming from different directions depending on which universe they’re inhabiting at any given time.

The series’ first episode is a showcase for the skills of Sian Clifford (Fleabag, His Dark Materials) as Ursula’s mother, Sylvie, who must not only suffer through the death of her child at the outset, but then repeatedly go through the pain of childbirth as Ursula is reborn. Clifford perfectly captures the harried, stressed-out mother, handling marital difficulties, living through war, and raising children, one of whom exhibits a very strange variety of anxiety. Her maternal grief is compelling.