Bob Larbey

How different from the Command Performance of The Good Life before Her Majesty at the BBC's TV centre. This was a charming instance of impromptu, informal, pop in and see us some time, pot luck entertainment. Apart from filming for two days instead of one and rehearsing all day before the performance, it was just like any ordinary Good Life (tonight BBC1).

The Other One (BBC1) is an enjoyable comedy series about British innocents abroad. Richard Briers is the chump with delusions of adequacy ('I keep on slipping into Spanish without realising it') and Michael Gambon is his boring friend. Lightweight stuff, but at least palatable, which puts it in sharp contrast with Are You Being Served?, still pursuing its innuendo-strewn course.

The Good Life (BBC1) is by now clearly established as the best Nice Couple sitcom on the screen, partly because Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal are a genuinely Nice Couple, but mainly because of the inspired interference from their snotty neighbour, Margo. [...] A meticulously groomed, flint-profiled ballbreaker with a taste for leopard-skin prints, Margo is the repository of every known prejudice common among the landless landed gentry - as bigoted as Alf Garnett but without his flexibility.

The Good Life (BBC1) is a civilised new comedy series with considerable charm and Richard Briers. There is a lot of bad meat sold in the comedy market, but I can recommend this as very fresh and pleasant.

The Fenn Street Gang (LWT), or Son of Please Sir, demonstrates television's inability to let a good thing go. It pursues the careers of Form 30 into the wider world and larger opportunities which teachers tell us await us. This series suffers immediately from the lack of the adult actors, who gave it strength and stature.