My Family

Ben is the harassed centre of the Harper family. His wife Susan is intelligent, sharp, witty and something of a control freak, and their still-loving marriage is a vehicle that may squeak but nonetheless keeps moving along. Ben - though he complains a lot - knows that he has done well in this regard. Susan works as a tour guide, Ben as a dentist, and their home life is complicated by the normal wear and tear of three children. Nick, the eldest, is an indolent, slow-witted, incompetent who nonetheless exudes a certain charm. Janey is a stereotypical teenager, concerned with boys, fashion and looks. Michael is the youngest, a serious, studious boy arguably far brighter than his two siblings. At work, Ben is aided, just, by his dense hygienist Brigitte (series one) and by son Nick (series two). Janey's appearances grow more sporadic when she leaves for university and becomes a single mother, at which point the rather obtuse and naive Abi moves in, becoming a sort of surrogate daughter for the Harpers before Janey returns to the fold, having dropped out of university and found a flat near to her family. The fifth series then saw Nick out of the picture - said to have finally moved into his own flat.

Though it would be a fallacy to say that every sitcom created in America in the 1990s was top-notch, for there were many clinkers, those shows imported on to British TV were far and away superior to the British model, the likes of Frasier, Seinfeld, Friends,and others proving that, with the right chemistry both in front of and behind the camera, the genre still had plenty of mileage. Such excellence caused a long, head-scratching and soul-searching examination of the ailing British sitcom, leading to numerous supposed remedies, few of which worked. ITV tried again at adapting a US hit for domestic consumption, reshaping That 70s Show into the disastrous Days Like These. It was at this time that American sitcom writer Fred Barron (Caroline In The City, The Larry Sanders Show, etc) created My Family, basing the lead character, Ben, on his recently deceased father. Unable to place it in the USA it ended up at the BBC where it was recognised as a potential solution to the ongoing dilemma. Employing the American-style team-writing formula, the show was scripted by a team of British and Americans and comprised more episodes-per-series than the norm. Taking no chances, the show was also given a decidedly American look. It further benefited by utilising a set that remained standing throughout the production of each series. Because studios are in constant demand, a BBC set is usually built for a recording and then 'struck', stored away until the following week's episode. My Family was shot in an independent studio and the permanent set meant that actors could rehearse in situ rather than in the draughty, cheerless rehearsal spaces - churches, community halls, rooms above pubs - used in British TV since its earliest days. The actors consequently enjoyed a greater sense of comfort in their surroundings. Another by-product of the American formula was that the writing was done as the show went along. It is usual for all the episodes in a British sitcom to be written prior to shooting the first, restricting to subsequent series any changes suggested by the actual performances. Making subtle alterations to My Family as it progressed improved the recipe sooner rather than later.

The result was a simple domestic comedy that relied for its laughs upon character and sharp dialogue, rather than complex plotting, and was well served by the excellence of Zoe Wanamaker and Robert Lindsay. Though few critics warmed to it, finding it middle-of-the-road and old-fashioned, above-average audience ratings encouraged the BBC to stick at it, commissioning further (longer-than-average) seasons and eventually scoring a sizeable and deserved hit.

My Family

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