In 1975, Esmonde and Larbey created their best-known situation comedy: "The Good Life", starring Richard Briers, Felicity Kendal, Paul Eddington and Penelope Keith. Set in Surbiton, London, it concerns itself with the attempts of Tom and Barbara Good (Briers and Kendal) to be self-sufficient after they decide to leave the rat race. It ran on the BBC until 1978, although it is still regularly repeated. At its peak, the show was attracting some 15 million viewers per week – nearly a quarter of the population at the time. The writers had "just picked it at random", Larbey once admitted. "To be honest, we were just looking for something that sounded like suburbia in big capital letters." The show poked fun at the ideologies of both lead couples – the aggressively socially climbing Leadbetters and the self-sufficient (and self-satisfied) Goods. Larbey later said that while he was too impractical to embrace self-sufficiency, its general philosophy appealed to him.