The "Good Life": Mutiny V.3

THE PROGRAMME: The Good Life was conceived at a time when self-sufficiency was the talking point of many a suburban dinner party. Hot on the heels of the 1960s' flower power, the Seventies were a time when getting back to the soil - and escaping the rat race - were high on many people's wish list. And for those who never quite managed to get off the hamster wheel and change their lives for ever, Tom and Barbara Good did it for them, week in, week out, on BBC1. Like Pinky and Perky, the series had an excellent pedigree: writing partners John Esmonde and Bob Larbey had already enjoyed TV sitcom success with The Fenn Street Gang, and concurrently with The Good Life they would also write the very popular Get Some In! for ITV. Producer and director John Howard Davies, meanwhile, had worked on Monty Python's Flying Circus, All Gas and Gaiters and Steptoe and Son. In the same period as The Good Life he produced Fawlty Towers and The Goodies, and went on to enjoy an illustrious career in television light entertainment. When it came to casting, theatre performances of Alan Ayckbourn's The Norman Conquests and Absurd Person Singular provided plenty of inspiration for John Howard Davies. Penelope Keith and Felicity Kendal were acting together in The Norman Conquests (a television version of which later featured Keith alongside Richard Briers) whilst Paul Eddington was spied in Absurd Person Singular. Richard Briers had a strong track record in TV sitcom, having notably starred in five series of Marriage Lines with Prunella Scales. Although in the storyline Margo's beloved Avenue was firmly place in Surbiton, Surrey, exterior filming for the series took place largely in Northwood, Middlesex. Two suitable neighbouring houses were found, with the real owners of Tom and Barbara's property agreeing to the transformation of their garden into an allotment. The Good Life ran for four series, from 1975 to 1977, followed by a Christmas episode, Silly But It's Fun, in December 1977. The following year, the cast reassembled for one final edition, When I'm 65, recorded at BBC Television Centre in front of the Queen and Prince Philip. In total, 30 episodes of the programme were made. All four lead actors would go on from The Good Life to star in other successful sitcom vehicles: Penelope Keith in To The Manor Born, Richard Briers in Ever Decreasing Circles, Felicity Kendal in Solo and The Mistress and Paul Eddington in Yes, Minister (later Yes, Prime Minister).