The Good Life

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The Good Life is recycled as BBC reality show fronted by Sue Perkins and Giles Coren
By Sara Nathan
14th July 2010

It was decades ahead of its time, satirising suburban self-sufficiency years before going green became so fashionable. The Good Life showed the trials and tribulations faced by Tom and Barbara Good as they attempted to live an alternative lifestyle at their semi in Surbiton. Now the BBC series, one of the country's best-loved sitcoms, is being recycled as a reality show.

To celebrate its 35th anniversary, comedian Sue Perkins and journalist Giles Coren are attempting to live the good life for a new BBC series. They have taken up residence in a suburban street in North London and have been inspiring themselves with clips from the comedy, which featured Richard Briers as Tom and Felicity Kendal as Barbara. Coren and Miss Perkins, both 40, are trying to recreate Tom and Barbara's world - from growing leeks in the front garden to grazing goats in the local park. They are also weaving cloth for their clothes and building a methane generator to power their electricity.

Coren has already spoken of his fear at coming close to livestock, writing in a posting on Twitter: 'First day's filming with Sue Perkins, just about survived. 'I actually touched a live chicken. Terrifying. Could have ended up 2010's Steve Irwin.' Miss Perkins replied scathingly: 'When you say "you touched a chicken", it makes it sound active. Actually, a chicken inadvertently grazed past you and then you screamed.'

A BBC source said: 'Sue and Giles will get advice from experts if needed, but much of the time they'll be trying to find their own answers to everything from carrot blight to how to treat a constipated pig. They have got their woolly jumpers and bobble hats.'

Coren and Miss Perkins have already appeared together on the popular BBC2 Supersizers series, where they sample the culinary delights of time gone by. Their efforts to become self-sufficient will be shown in a three-part series, Giles and Sue Live ... There will also be a Christmas special and a book will be released to go with the programme.

The Good Life was screened on BBC1 from 1975 to 1978. Depressed at becoming 40, Tom Good decided to quit the rat race, giving up his job as a draughtsman and persuading his wife Barbara to swap their middle-class lifestyle for self-sufficiency. Their efforts alarmed their snobby neighbours Jerry and Margot Leadbetter, played by Paul Eddington and Penelope Keith. Margot was terrified that Tom and Barbara would lower the tone of the neighbourhood, sniffing: 'That does not alter the fact that I shall still be able to see pigs from my garden.' The comedy has remained so popular that in 2004 it came ninth in a poll of Britain's best sitcoms.