Why The Young Ones Picked a Fight with The Good Life

In the penultimate episode of The Young Ones (“Sick”) Vyvyan’s parents can’t understand why the show isn’t sweetly good natured the way that The Good Life is. Thanks to some dodgy Chroma-key, Adrian Edmondson is seen physically ripping up the title sequence, following which he delivers an impassioned rant about how reactionary and bourgeois the programme is. Ben Elton, one of the three credited writers, feels a bit bad about this. Unlike some of its stablemates, The Good Life has endured and is now seen as just as much of a classic as the show that merrily took the piss out of it.

To be clear, this is a normal function of comedy evolution. Today’s young upstarts parody the previous generation before going on to become part of the establishment themselves. Monty Python sent up end-of-the-pier entertainers and were themselves sent up by Not the Nine O’Clock News, The Young Ones and even Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse. Some accept this as turnabout-is-fair-play, others feel more bruised.

But why did Elton and his co-writers pick The Good Life in the first place? It ran from 1974 to 1978 and was endlessly repeated, so when “Sick” was broadcast it was still clearly remembered. But you could say the same thing about Dad’s Army or Are You Being Served? or Last of the Summer Wine or especially Terry and June. But The Good Life was the ideal choice for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, albeit Ben Elton does feel now that he regrets the rough treatment his upstart show handed out, it doesn’t feel like kicking a kitten. The Good Life was a prime time BBC1 show which had ended its run with a Royal Command Performance and which was pulling in audiences of 20m at its peak. It had won BAFTAs and it had made stars of all four of its leads. The Young Ones was making inroads, especially in school playgrounds, but it hadn’t proven itself as an enduring classic and it was about to finish after 12 episodes in three years.

If Terry and June, say, had been the target of Vyvyan’s ire, it would have felt all wrong. Terry and June was a workhorse, essentially the same two characters that Terry Scott and June Whitfield had been playing since 1974. Plus, with only two stars it would have felt like a personal attack. The four leads of The Good Life allows the vitriol a bit more of an even dispersal.

As noted, some forty years after “Sick” aired, both The Young Ones and The Good Life are seen as comedy classics, but for very different reasons. The Young Ones innovated in form and style, and brought five new fearless performers to our screens. The Good Life used established TV and stage actors, put them in a fairly familiar situation, shot it conventionally, but it was a cut above the competition, and one of those occasions when everything “clicked”. Four fabulous actors, perfectly cast, elegant scripts which understood how to service not just the characters but the relationships between them.

No wonder it was the Queen’s favourite show. Although Paul Eddington claims that when a little girl presented her with flowers at the Royal Command Performance and said they were from Felicity Kendall, Her Majesty responded “who’s that?”.