BBC Two · Ended

Stressed Eric

Comedy · 1998

Last aired: S2 E7, Drool · 2000-10-11

Eric is 40, and lives in London. He is a middle class single father (divorced) with two kids and a crippling mortgage. His son is so dim he's been kept back at school three years running. His daughter is a frail, allergy-ridden waif of six. His wife has left him for a Buddhist and his au-pair is an unreliable waster. Even the family next door are successful and wealthy, a stressful reminder of what his life could have been. At work too, there is no respite, a series of stress related illnesses have seen him demoted from Sales through half a dozen offices to the dark, dank, wastelands of the Data Department next to the gentlemen's lavatory. Each week Eric faces up to the important issues that concern a single father today, from, "How do you compensate your children for the lack of a female role model?" to: "How do you ask for sex in your forties without getting arrested?" He also deals with everyday problems such as how to build a flatpack wardobe without the instructions and how to do "Remembrance of Things Past" in charades.