For the Richmond Theatre going audiences. The Good Life looks like a perfect night out. Based on the classic TV sitcom which ran from 1975 to 1978 over four seasons and set in nearby Surbiton with themes of self-sufficiency, work-life balance debates and relations with your neighbours could there be a better time to adapt this for the stage than now post-pandemic?
Jeremy Sams has adapted some of John Esmonde and Bob Larbey’s original scripts for the stage and directed the show (always I think a risk to adapt and direct yourself). He borrows from Episode 1 Plough your own Furrow when Tom decides on his fortieth birthday that he is missing “It” and with encouragement from his wife Barbara decides to give up work and become self-sufficient. The dinner party with his old boss Sir Andrew from Series 1 Episode 4 Pagan Rite, Margot’s attempts to be in the Sound of Music from Series 2 Episode Mutiny and the birth of piglets from Series 3 Episode 2 The Happy Event become core scenes in the play. Sams’ weaves this together into a seamless development of the Good’s relationship with their neighbours The Leadbetter's. It is cleverly staged in a design by Michael Taylor with rotating walls that smoothly switch us from the Good’s house to the Leadbetter’s house with plenty of seventies references to set the period, although perhaps the differentiation between the two rooms could be stronger.
