At Home with the Snails

At Home with the Snails

Genre	Black comedy
Running time	30 minutes
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Language(s)	English
Home station	BBC Radio 4
Starring	Geoffrey Palmer Angela Thorne Gerard Foster Miranda Hart Debra Stephenson
Written by	Gerard Foster
Produced by	Jane Berthoud
Original release	26 June 2001 – 8 August 2002
No. of series	2
No. of episodes	8
Audio format	Stereophonic sound
Opening theme	Waltzinblack from The Gospel According to the Meninblack by The Stranglers

At Home with the Snails is a somewhat surreal BBC Radio 4 comedy, written by Gerard Foster, about a British dysfunctional family. The cast includes Geoffrey Palmer as George Fisher, Angela Thorne as Beverly Fisher, Gerard Foster as Alex, Miranda Hart as Rose, and Debra Stephenson as Hosanna. It was produced by Jane Berthoud.

At Home with the Snails is often repeated on BBC Radio 4 Extra.

The story features Alex's obsession with snails, killing them, collecting them, having sexual desires for them and by season two, even attempting to turn into one. In the second season his mother and father (George and Beverly) decide to fake their own deaths and spy on their son in order to write a book about his descent into madness. The story explored themes of family, sexual preference and aging in a humorous yet thought-provoking style.

The characters are all mentally deranged, but only aware of each other's problems and not their own.

George is a pompous academic who puts his obscure, pretentious and pointless pontificating above all else including his family. He encourages Alex's snail obsession to get material for his books. Beverly, his sexually frustrated wife makes "nice things", such as a 20-foot-tall (6.1 m) "family mug tree". In one episode she develops racial dysphoria, and starts painting her face with boot polish, believing that she is a black person trapped in a white body. Their daughter Rose has her heart in the wrong place - jammed under her armpit. She runs a confectionery shop selling "chocolate excretions" and "jelly war babies".

The humour is politely and subliminally obscene.

Episode list

Series	Episode	First broadcast
1	1	26 June 2001
	2	3 July 2001
	3	10 July 2001
	4	17 July 2001
2	1	18 July 2002
	2	25 July 2002
	3	1 August 2002
	4	8 August 2002

External links

• At Home with the Snails at British Comedy Guide