'' was a
British Situation Comedy which ran on
BBC One for four series from
1984 to
1987 .
It was written by
John Esmonde And Bob Larbey , and reunited them with
Richard Briers , the star of their previous hit show, ''
The Good Life ''. It was much less brash than most situation comedies, and was more like a
Comedy-drama in places.
Briers played Martin Bryce, an
Obsessive Compulsive middle-aged man who is at the centre of his local
Suburban community.
He is married to Ann (
Penelope Wilton ), and has an apparently calm and relaxed lifestyle, until he encounters their new next-door neighbour, Paul Ryman (
Peter Egan ). Paul is everything Martin is not — adventurous, ''laissez-faire'', flippant, witty, handsome and charming. He attempts to try to join in with the activities of Martin and his friends, but his fresh thinking causes Martin to see him as a rival, who might want to "take over" Martin's self-appointed role as organiser. Martin's obsession with order and stability also leads him to get upset at Paul's minor changes to routine, such as sitting at a different table in the local
Pub .
An undercurrent through the series was the potential of romance between Paul and Ann, but nothing ever happened between them, despite many opportunities. Despite Martin's foibles, he and Ann are clearly very much in love, and manage to ride out even their most difficult disagreements.
Other regular characters included Howard and Hilda (
Stanley Lebor and
Geraldine Newman ), neighbours of Martin's who share some of his obsessiveness while having plenty of quirks of their own, such as often dressing identically.
After four series, ''Ever Decreasing Circles'' ended on Christmas Eve 1989 with a 120 minute finale entitled ''Moving on'' (sometimes referred to as ''New Horizons'') in which Martin's employer, Mole Valley Valves, merged with another company and moved to
Oswestry .
The show was voted number 52 in the
BBC 's ''
Britain's Best Sitcom '' poll in
2003 .
The title music was not written specifically for the series, but was instead a gentle piano piece,
Shostakovich 's Prelude No.15 from his Op.34 (24 Preludes), played by Ronnie Lane.
The complete series of ''Ever Decreasing Circles'' is available on DVD (Region 2, U.K.) from Network.
