Created Nov 27, 2008 | Updated Oct 29, 2011

The Good Life (Flea Market, Collaborative, WIP)

A2239832

NO!! No! We're not watching the bloody Good Life!! Bloody bloody bloody!! I hate it!! It's so bloody nice! Felicity 'Treacle' Kendall and Richard 'Sugar-Flavored-Snot' Briers!! What do they do now?! Chocolate bloody Button ads, that's what!! They're just a couple of reactionary stereotypes, confirming the myth that everyone in Britain is a lovable, middle-class eccentric - and I - HATE - THEM!!

On 4 April 1975, BBC TV transmitted the first episode of “The Good Life”, a sitcom in the usual comfy sense but nonetheless groundbreaking in more ways than one.

The central premise1 is that suburban husband Tom Good, frustrated, unambitious and unfulfilled as a designer of novelty toys for cereal packets, elects on his 40th birthday to opt out, leaving behind the trappings and security of a weekly brown envelope in exchange for a life on the land. He takes with him his feisty but devotedly supportive wife Barbara – and then doesn't go anywhere, instead committing to self-sufficienct on their little patch of Surbiton2. by taking a rotavator to the front lawn to grow produce and farming livestock. Next door, like Wise to the Goods' Morecambe are the Leadbetters – Margot and Jerry – whose trenchant adherence to the social mores of the rung-climbing middle-class is diametrically opposed to practical earthy Tom and Barbara Good. And therein lies the comedic situation.

1as if anyone doesn't already know!2affluent suburban London

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