Barbara Good

Barbara Good is a Surbiton housewife who, on her fortieth birthday, agrees to her husband Tom's scheme to quit the rat race and live entirely off their own back garden. She swaps nice clothes for wellingtons, tends pigs and vegetables, and meets the chaos with wit rather than complaint, even as suburbia watches bemused.

Felicity Kendal keeps Barbara from ever being the scheme's mere accomplice; she's its equal architect and its sharpest skeptic, needling Tom's idealism while matching his commitment. The comedy trusts her practicality and charm to carry scenes of literal muck and manure, so the show never condescends to the couple's ambition or her.