 The Good Life
1 9 7 5 - 1 9 7 8 (UK)
30 x 30 minute episodes
A nice, cosy, middle class sitcom made in a time when nice, cosy,
middle class sitcoms were funny.
The premise was simple. Tom & Barbara Good, a nice
middle-class couple from Surbiton, decide to give up the rat race
and practice self-sufficiency ( next door to their best friends
the Ledbetters, Jerry and Margo).
Tom and Jerry work had worked together at JJM Limited, a
company that designs and makes novelty plastics (mainly the toys
that go in breakfast cereal). While they had started out together
as draughtsmen, Jerry had worked himself into an executive
management position while Tom was still languishing in the design
room with employees half his age.
So on his 40th birthday he throws it all away and goes native
with his lovely wife, Barbara (Felicity Kendall).
Much of the comedy centred on the relationship between
Tom/Barbara and Margo/Jerry - Margo is a social-climber, involved
with the Pony Club and amateur theatricals, longing to get-
noticed by the "Right People", while Barbara enjoys home
life, gardening and the occasional night out with Tom.
Penelope Keith encapsulated British middle-class snobbery as
Margot Leadbetter.
There were hints at 70s style suburban wife-swapping with Jerry
and Barbara in the kitchen and Margot and Tom in the other room.
Surbiton swings like a pendulum do . . .
The Good Life remained one of the BBC's most popular
shows for years. Two follow-up specials were recorded, and the
series was re-run many times.
It enjoyed a healthy export life as well, particularly in
Australia and in the US (where it was broadcast on PBS under the
title Good Neighbors due to the fact that there had been a
( flop) home grown comedy series called The Good Life on US
network television back in 1971 with Larry Hagman and Donna
Mills).
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