Class warfare and bland humour (The Good Life)

Member Name: thehud

Product:	The Good Life
Date:	26/09/02 (127 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some good bits

Disadvantages: Disappointingly bland

Ye gods but the BBC has been responsible for some pretty disappointing television in its time - true enough, they haven't plumbed the depths as consistently or as deeply as ITV and have also created some rare and marvellous gems, but they have often let themselves down badly against the GoodTasteOMeter.

In fact, they've probably fared even more badly when they've tried to do well against that same mythical scale, for the faceless men who commission programmes for the Beeb have stumbled badly when they have sought to produce decent family entertainment which offends no one.

By trying to produce shows that were created by committee and avoid giving offence to anyone, all they succeed in doing is offend our sensibilities. Well, they certainly do mine. One of the ultimate lows in such bland sit com shows was My Wife Next Door, while Hi De Hi and You Rang My Lord ran it close for inoffensiveness.

By and large, in my not so humble opinion, truly great comedy can only emerge from situations of conflict. Think about it - the great comedies - Basil and Sybil's feuding was a major factor in the popularity of Fawlty Towers - Meldrew hated everyone and everyone hated him in One Foot In The Grave - The Young Ones were loathed by everyone, etc etc

When everything in the garden is lovely and we all get along swimmingly, comedy becomes plain dull and boring. Which brings me onto the matter at hand, i.e. that epitome of taste, decency and bland inoffensivess, The Good Life, written by the old stagers John Esmonde and Bob Larbey.

Apart from flashes of abysmal snobbery from the awesome Margot Leadbetter, played expertly by Penelope Keith, this programme was the zenith of tedium, offending no one, but equally insulting all.

It made massive stars of its main characters, Richard Briers as Tom Good, Felicity Kendal as Barbara Good, Keith as Margot and Paul Eddington as Jerry Leadbetter and was hugely popular in its
day, but really the whole thing was slight and shallow and self consciously good humoured in the most irritating of ways.

The Good Life (if you genuinely don't know what the premise is) told the tale of Tom and Barbara Good and their next door neighbours, the Leadbetters. Jerry and Tom work together and live next door to each other in the most upstanding of all suburban environments, the height of respectability and conformity. However, Tom eventually decides that he can no longer stand the eternal requirement for sucking up to Sir, and resolves to take a dramatic decision, throwing in his lower middle class lifestyle, giving up his job and opting for a self sufficiency lifestyle, rearing pigs, sheep, hens and cows, making their own clothes and living on home brew wine.

The Leadbetters, especially Margot are appalled by this turn of events and concerned abotu what the other nbeighbours will think, but pity poor old Barbara and mad old Tom.

Of course, there are lots of setbacks and not everything goes swimmingly but the Goods have their love, good humour and optimism to see them through. YAWN!!!

This series really was as dull and boring as I am painting it, even though it was pleasant enough and contained some decent enough bits. The relationship between the four main characters and some of the fun-poking at the expense of Margot was skilfully handled, but really there's only so many jokes you can get out of this formula, and a couple of shows in had seen most of the milking complete.

Having said all that, for many people such gentle and inoffensive comedy is highly attractive. Check out the popularity of the equally tepid Last of the Summer Wine, and who am I to decry the taste of the great British public?

Well, actually, I don't much care how popular The Good Life was. It got on my nerves rather more than somewhat and was unapologetically dull. As I said just the other night, the same writing
team went on to create Ever Decreasing Circles as the next vehicle for Briers and that was great comedy, manufactured with much the same sort of material and sensibilities as The Good Life, so there really weren't any excuses.

Having said all that, of course, there were good things about the series. The playing was pretty skillful and the cast combined well to create some believable and eminently watchable dynamics, Briers is consistently good in everything he does, and then there was always Felicity Kendal's bottom, as admired so graphically by Ade Edmondson and Nigel Planer's father in The Young Ones. Viv managed to trick his dirty socks into leaping into the washing machine by persuading them that they were going to mingle with Felicity's dirty underwear - OO-ER.

She was a fair old sex symbol at the time, and strangely so too was the oddly enticing Penelope Keith, despite a desperate taste in clothes.

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