More fun with the Goods
Good Neighbors (or The Good Life as it was known in the UK) is the story of Tom and Barbara Good, a middle-aged couple in the 1970s who decide to escape the rat race by living a life of complete self-sufficiency. They exchange their car for a cultivator, and turn their garden into a full-fledged (if rather small) farm. Their good friends and neighbors, the social climbing Gerry and Margot Leadbetter (played by Paul Eddington and Penelope Keith!) sometimes provide support, and other times disapproval. Through it all, the antics of the two mismatched set of neighbors produces laughs and good times for all!

Sadly, for some reason known only to the BBC, the episodes of this wonderful show have been released in a seemingly random order. Still, this show is so good, that it is better to have them this way than not at all! This tape contains three, half-hour episodes.

Pig's Lib - Series 1, episode 4 (April 25, 1975) - When the Good's decide to add pigs to their menagerie, Margot calls in the chairman of the local residents' association. This means war!

Just My Bill - Series 2, episode 8 (December 5, 1975) - The Good's harvest is in, just in time to sell it and pay the rates. Unfortunately, selling their produce proves a good deal harder than Tom foresaw.

Mutiny - Series 2, episode 12 (January 9, 1976) - Jerry's boss wants him to entertain a foreign businessman on the same night that Margot plays Maria in the Sound of Music. When Jerry refuses Sir's orders, he is immediately sacked, and now it's the Leadbetters that in need of help.

The Best in British Comedy
I first started watching Good Neighbors with my sister (thank you PBS) when we were in college in 1979 and 1980. We fell in love with it then and began using some of the phrases in our everyday speech, i.e., "Well, thank you very much!" It doesn't matter how many times I see the episodes, I still love them. Because of the superb acting, they are as fresh today as they were more than 20 years ago.

dry humor and british comedy at its best!!!
For those of you who love to the manor born, and other brit sit-coms this and the other in the series are must sees'!!! I now have my 13 year old son hooked on the shows and they are good clean comedy!!

The Golden Age of the BBC
When I first saw the Good Life (the British name) in the 1970s as an impressionable kid, I immediately loved it. Everybody was so nice and civilized unlike the glue-sniffing, head-butting ruffians at my local Scottish comprehensive school. I was so charmed that I almost wanted to become English, middle-class, and 'awfully nice.' I also developed a raging crush on Felicity Kendall.

This series was a product of the golden age of British TV when the BBC was more like a giant artists' collective than the faceless management bureau it has since become. The casting is incredible. The four main actors are hand-in-glove with their roles. Paul Eddington as the long-suffering but slyly rebellious Jerry is the perfect foil for Margot's innocent pomposity. Felicity Kendall's Barbara is both tomboyish and kittenish and serves as a welcome check on Richard Brier's naughty little boy act as the exuberant and mischievous Tom.

For those unfamiliar with the situation of this situation comedy, it concerns the efforts of Tom and Barbara Good to escape the 9-to-5, Monday-to-Friday, suburbs-to-city commuting rat race, by starting a commune in their own garden, and the effect this has on their relationship with their very strait-laced neighbors, Jerry and Margot.

The 3 episodes collected on this tape reflect poor BBC marketing expediency more than anything else. This tape includes episode 4 from the 1st series and episodes 1 and 5 from the 2nd series with the following original transmission dates. This means that the marvellous continuity between episodes is lost, dampening the effect of some of the humor.

(1) Pig's Lib - 25th of April, 1975

This is one of the best episodes as Margot tries to stop Tom and Barabara rearing pigs in their garden. When she succeeds and the pigs are sent to the slaughterhouse, however, she has a sudden change of heart.

(2) Just My Bill - 5th of December, 1975

Another excellent episode. This one manages to get away from the main set of the Goods' and Leadbetters' houses and gardens, as Tom tries to sell his agricultural surplus first to a restaurateur and then on the street. Also we see Margot fighting the creeping Socialism of council bureacracy when she pays her rates (property tax) at the council offices.

(3) Mutiny - 9th of January, 1976

This is one of the episodes that suffers from lack of continuity, as one of the main themes, Margot's involvement with the local music society's production of the "Sound of Music," was developed over several episodes. The mutiny in the title refers to Jerry's attempt to stand up to his boss when he asks him to host a foreign visitor on the opening night of the show. The mutiny misfires when Jerry is immediately fired. Being the time-serving toady that he has to be to suceed in the corporate rat race, he predictably comes crawling back to his boss.

Get it quick! Felicity is sooooo popular!
I saw this series when it came to US TV some years ago (thank you, forever, PBS). I loved it then. I love it now. I've got the whole collection, finally. And thank god, because these seem to go in and out of stock quite rapidly.

Stars: Tom & Barbara Good, played by Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal - whom I worship, and Margo & Jerry Leadbetter, played by Penelope Keith and Paul Eddington.

I also saw Felicity Kendal in a PBS replay of the BBC Shakespeare series with her starring as Viola in "Twelfth Night" and was so impressed that I named a daughter after her.

Felicity (and the other cast members) are believable, funny, and always in trouble, love, etc., with each other.

The setting... Tom & Barbara move to a ritzy neighborhood and start a farm... well, more like they decide to "live off the land." Try that in a swank neighborhood and I'm sure you'll end up with some of the problems they had.

Totally hysterical. Very funny. A must see. Own it if you can. Definitely for the whole family.