[1] It was made toward the end of a run of British comedies focussing on the aspirational middle class, with The Guardian describing it as having "a quiet, unacknowledged and deep-running despair to it that in retrospect seems quite daring".

[2] Richard Briers plays Martin Bryce, an obsessive, middle-aged man at the centre of his local suburban community in Mole Valley, Surrey.

Martin is married to the domesticated and patient Ann (Penelope Wilton) and has a settled, orderly lifestyle until he encounters their new next-door neighbour, ex-British Army officer and Cambridge Blue Paul Ryman (Peter Egan).

The other regular characters were Howard and Hilda Hughes (Stanley Lebor and Geraldine Newman), another married couple who generally add lighter humour to the plots.

They are long-standing friends and neighbours of Martin's, who share some of his obsessiveness whilst having plenty of quirks of their own (such as often wearing "his and hers" matching outfits), but are also attracted by Paul's personality.

Paul also solves a marital crisis in one episode when Martin is tricked by a colleague into believing he had had a drunken one-night stand while away on business and admitting to Ann his infidelity.

The show also featured guest appearances by Peter Blake, Ronnie Stevens, Victoria Burgoyne, Ray Winstone, Pamela Salem, and Suzan Crowley.

Ann discovers she is pregnant and, despite Martin initially resenting the unborn child for forcing him to move away from The Close, the story ends with the couple bidding farewell to their neighbours.

[3] Reappraising the series, Andy Dawson in the Daily Mirror notes that "Ever Decreasing Circles strayed far from the well-worn path that other Britcoms trudged along in the 1970s and 1980s.