London

'The Good Life'

5 Escape
David Nobbs ‘I come from Orpington in Kent. It didn’t drive me mad because I knew I was going to leave it, but I did find it a stifling sort of place… The absence of anywhere to take a girl, no decent restaurants, very limited choices.’

Sam Bain ‘Jeremy is the classic suburban dreamer. He lives in a very ordinary flat in a tower block, but in his mind he’s probably playing Glastonbury every night, dating supermodels and being a creative genius.’

Carla Lane ‘I would die in the suburbs now. I couldn’t live with a house either side of me. I need to have trees to sit under and places to walk to and water and animals. You can’t get that in a suburban house.’ Feature continues

Phil Cornwell ‘We picked Surbiton because it was such an unglamorous place. With all respect to Surbiton, why would Jack Nicholson and Al Pacino and all the rest of them want to live there?’

Maurice Gran ‘I don’t think that people who live in Pinner think they live on the edges of London, I think that they think they live in the middle of Pinner. But that’s just my fantasy about them – that all they care about are the golf club and the health club and the one boutique that has a bit of designer clothing.’