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.
