The family

THE FAMILY
THE Family is a British sitcom created and initially co-written by Fred Barron, which was produced by DLT Entertainment and Rude Boy Productions, and broadcast by BBC One for eleven series between 2000 and 2011, with Christmas specials broadcast from 2002 onwards. My Family was voted 24th in the BBC's "Britain's Best Sitcom" in 2004 and was the most watched sitcom in the United Kingdom in 2008.^[1] As of 2011, it is one of only twelve British sitcoms to pass the 100-episode mark.^[2] In April 2020, BBC One began airing the series from the first episode in an 8 pm slot on Friday nights; along with this all 11 series were made available on BBC iPlayer.^[3]
The show chronicles the lives of the Harpers, a fictional middle-class British family. Set in Chiswick in west London, it stars Robert Lindsay as Ben Harper, Zoë Wanamaker as his wife Susan, and Kris Marshall, Daniela Denby-Ashe, and Gabriel Thomson as their children Nick, Janey and Michael.
Background
In 1999, Fred Barron was considering producing a British sitcom the same way sitcoms were produced in the U.S. My Family was to feature a group of writers rather than the standard one or two, something that had been attempted in the UK with shows including Goodnight Sweetheartand On the Buses, but was nevertheless atypical. My Family was consciously designed to have wide appeal, with characters viewers could build a relationship with in the same way as previous BBC sitcom 2point4 Children which focuses around a similar family unit.
The show chronicles the lives of the Harpers, a fictional middle-class British family who live at 78 Lancaster Road, Chiswick, London. Dentist Ben and his wife Susan, a tour guide who later works for an art gallery, have three children: Nick, Janey, and Michael, who endanger their lives. Susan is a control freak, but Ben prefers to leave the children to it and stay as uninvolved as possible.