This Life + 10 (BBC2) REVISITING old friends after a long absence isn't always advisable - especially if, like This Life, they were bold, brash and unlike anything you'd seen before on TV.

Things have changed in the decade since we last met Egg, Miles, Anna and the rest of the house-sharing gang who spent their time swearing, arguing and having sex.

Some things have changed. They still throw the f-word about like confetti at a wedding and the back-biting shows no sign of abating, although they're so busy with those they don't have much time for sex.

Writer Amy Jenkins brought them together again using that old excuse, a funeral. The body in the coffin belonged to Ferdy whom Millie reminded her ex-housemates was "one of us". He was also, you may recall, what used to be referred to in pre-PC days as "one of them", a man who enjoyed liaisons with anyone with a pulse.

She also employed another cliched device by having the friends' reunion at Miles' multi-million pound country pad for a TV documentary, so their every move and every word is captured by intrusive film-maker Claire.

There was also something a little contrived about giving each of the six originals a different problem to be debated and resolved over the weekend, but that didn't detract too much from the pleasure of being reacquainted with the older, but not particularly wiser, group.

Egg was now a successful writer, with a number one bestseller about the 1990s and the time he shared a house with some friends. He wanted, he maintained, to celebrate his friends, not expose them. Where's the fun in that?

Millie, still his partner and now a stay-at-home mother, had the right idea, but then she always was the most sensible one, apart from that fling with her older boss. A staged reunion on camera was a bad idea, she said, because "no one ever comes out of those things unscathed".

As usual, it was Anna who caused much of the trouble. A successful lawyer, she wanted a baby. In typical Anna fashion, she marched into the fertility clinic and demanded, as others would ask for a pint of milk in the supermarket, "I'll cut to the chase, I want some sperm. I'm single, can I get some sperm?"

Having failed, she decided to attend the reunion after all and find a potential father there. Just as well because the others were missing her. "It's not the same without her," said Miles. Before long, he'd changed his mind, telling her "I'd forgotten how you like to destroy people".

This Life actually made reputations, with the regular cast going on to bigger and better things. And bigger hair in Jack Davenport's case.

But it was good to see him, Andrew Lincoln, Daniela Nardini, Jason Hughes and Amita Dhirit back in the roles that made their names.

The reunion might not have gone so smoothly for the fictional characters but for This Life followers it was a worthwhile idea.