At Home with the Snails is a somewhat surreal BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

 comedy, written by Gerard Foster, about a British dysfunctional family

Dysfunctional family

A dysfunctional family is a family in which conflict, misbehavior, and often abuse on the part of individual members occur continually and regularly, leading other members to accommodate such actions. Children sometimes grow up in such families with the understanding that such an arrangement is...

. The cast includes Geoffrey Palmer

Geoffrey Palmer (actor)

Geoffrey Dyson Palmer, OBE is an English actor, best known for his roles in sitcoms such as Butterflies and As Time Goes By.-Career:...

 as George Fisher, Angela Thorne

Angela Thorne

Angela Thorne is an English actress who is best known for her roles in To the Manor Born and Anyone for Denis?-Early life:Angela Thorne was born in Karachi, British India, , in 1939...

 as Beverly Fisher, Gerard Foster as Alex, Miranda Hart

Miranda Hart

Miranda Katharine Hart Dyke , known professionally as Miranda Hart, is an English actress, writer and stand-up comedienne. She writes and stars in the BBC sitcom Miranda...

 as Rose, and Debra Stephenson

Debra Stephenson

Debra Stephenson is an English actress, comedian, impressionist and singer.-Career:At the age of fourteen Stephenson appeared on BBC TV's Opportunity Knocks, winning her way through to the All-Winners' Final, broadcast live from the London Palladium...

 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

Collecting

The hobby of collecting includes seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining whatever items are of interest to the individual collector. Some collectors are generalists, accumulating merchandise, or stamps from all countries of the world...

 them, having sexual desires for them

Paraphilia

Paraphilia is a biomedical term used to describe sexual arousal to objects, situations, or individuals that are not part of normative stimulation and that may cause distress or serious problems for the paraphiliac or persons associated with him or her...

 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

Mental illness

A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...

, but only aware of each other's problems and not their own.

George is a pompous academic who puts his obscure, pretentious

Pretentious

Pretentious person means a person pretending to be someone who he is not just for the sake of showing that he is a higher intellectual than others....

 and pointless pontificating above all else including his family

Family

In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...

. He encourages Alex's snail obsession to get material for his books. Beverly, his sexually frustrated

Sexual frustration

Sexual frustration describes the condition in which a human or animal is in a state of agitation, depression, stress, loneliness or anxiety due to prolonged virginity, sexual inactivity and/or sexual dissatisfaction that leads him or her to want more sex or better sex, or a state in which he or she...

 wife makes "nice things", such as a 200 feet (61 m) "family mug tree". In one episode she develops racial dysphoria

Dysphoria

Dysphoria is medically recognized as a mental and emotional condition in which a person experiences intense feelings of depression, discontent and indifference to the world around them.Mood disorders can induce dysphoria, often with a heightened risk of suicide, especially in...

, and starts painting her face

Face

The face is a central sense organ complex, for those animals that have one, normally on the ventral surface of the head, and can, depending on the definition in the human case, include the hair, forehead, eyebrow, eyelashes, eyes, nose, ears, cheeks, mouth, lips, philtrum, temple, teeth, skin, and...

 with boot polish, believing that she is a black person trapped in a white body. Their daughter Rose has her heart

Heart

The heart is a myogenic muscular organ found in all animals with a circulatory system , that is responsible for pumping blood throughout the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions...

 in the wrong place - jammed under her armpit. She runs a confectionery

Confectionery

Confectionery is the set of food items that are rich in sugar, any one or type of which is called a confection. Modern usage may include substances rich in artificial sweeteners as well...

 shop selling "chocolate excretions" and "jelly war babies".

The humour is polite

Polite

Polite may refer to:* Politeness* Polite architecture, or the polite: a form of building design which is aestheticly led and characterised by intentionally incorporated stylistic or romantic features...

ly 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