For those who are visiting from another planet the Good Life, Written by John Esmonde and Bob Larbey
was about a man who, on reaching his fortieth birthday, decides to give up the
rat race and becomes self-sufficient.
The man having the midlife crisis is Tom Good (Richard Briers), who with
the help and support of his long-suffering wife Barbara, (Felicity Kendal)
turns his detached Surbiton home, into an urban farm.
This doesn't go down too well with their good friends and neighbours,
Jerry Leadbetter (Paul Eddington) and his snooty wife Margot, (Penelope Keith).
The Christmas episode, “Silly, But It's Fun”, first
broadcast 26th December 1977 is in my opinion the funniest Christmas sitcom
ever made.
Most Christmas sitcoms highlight the most negative aspects of the day
creating a kind of nightmarish microcosm of family life at Christmas.
The Good Life was the story of contrasts, with the Good’s making the best
of the meagre resources they had, while the Leadbetter’s just bought the best
of everything and lots of it.
In “ Silly, But It's Fun” Margo ordered Christmas to be delivered from
Harrods on Christmas Eve but refused delivery when the tree was six inches
shorter than the one, she had ordered.
As she rejected the tree, she also rejected everything else, including
Jerry’s gin, under the impression that Harrods would redeliver Christmas
including a tree of the requisite height for her later that day.
She was sadly mistaken and on Christmas Day she had to phone around
cancelling all their Christmas engagements under the pretext that Jerry has
Chicken pox.
Jerry was unperturbed at having political chicken pox but horrified when
he discovered that there was no more gin.
Enter the Goods, who save the day by inviting the Leadbetter’s to their
house for the day and a good time was had by all, they all got plastered on pea
pod burgundy and played silly party games.
The moral of the tale being that you can’t buy Christmas you have to make
it yourself.
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