Set in Chiswick in west London, it stars Robert Lindsay and Zoë Wanamaker as husband and wife Ben and Susan Harper, with Kris Marshall, Daniela Denby-Ashe and Gabriel Thomson as their children Nick, Janey and Michael.

In 1999, Fred Barron was considering producing a British sitcom the same way sitcoms were produced in the U.S. My Family was to feature a group of writers in a writers' room rather than the standard one or two, something that had been attempted in the UK with shows including Goodnight Sweetheart and On the Buses, but was nevertheless atypical.

Dentist Ben and his wife Susan, a tour guide who later works for an art gallery, have three children: Nick, Janey, and Michael, who endanger their lives.

Mainly focusing on Ben and Susan, the show featured sub-stories ranging from Nick's schemes to Abi and Roger's love life.

After the departure of Nick, more prominence was given to Abi and Roger's love life, Michael's misadventures, Janey's endless list of boyfriends, and Alfie's dream of musical stardom.

In addition, Mr. Alexander Casey, the Harpers' neighbour, appears in three episodes, "Driving Miss Crazy" (2001), "Neighbour Wars" (2008), and "Mary Christmas" (2010) My Family has used several actors from various past hit sitcoms, most notably David Haig from The Thin Blue Line, Belinda Lang of 2point4 Children, Diana Weston (Robert Lindsay's former long-term partner) from The Upper Hand who portrayed a trans woman named Charlie, Pauline Quirke of Birds of a Feather played a bank robber (whilst her husband in Birds of a Feather was a bank robber), and Sam Kelly from On the Up.

The BBC and UKTV refuse to re-broadcast the series four episode "Blind Justice", due to the receipt of 4 complaints (from a viewing public of 12m).

[8] Also, the show, unlike most British sitcoms but in common with most American television comedies, has no location footage.

At the start of the third series, four rectangle blocks fall onto a completely white screen to create Ben's face.

It continues to do this for Janey, Michael and (starting from the fourth episode entitled "Of Mice and Ben") the new character to the show Abi.

It reveals that Nick, Janey and Michael are next to Abi and Ben and Susan are with each other at the top left of the screen.

The series six opening titles have cut-outs of each character, as they fade into the white screen and zoom in and out and eventually stop moving.

Writers such as Sophie Hetherington, Georgia Pritchett, James Cary and Tess Morris have all written at least one episode for the sitcom at one point.

Ed Dyson and David Cantor have written episodes for the seventh, eighth, ninth and eleventh series.

Initially, the show received a poor critical response, and many dismissed its humour as mundane and dated.

[10] Bruce Dessau, writing on the 100th episode, noted that it was a comedy that "the critics hate, but the public love", on the basis of ratings.

[11] Zoë Wanamaker said in 2007 that she was no longer happy with the quality of the writing, claiming she and co-star Robert Lindsay even refused to film one episode because it was so poor.

[12] In May 2009, the two stars revealed they were still unhappy with the writing quality, with Lindsay stating "There's some real dross (in the scripts) and we're aware of it".

BBC One controller Danny Cohen, when commenting on the decision to axe the series, said "Now that all the Harper children have flown the nest we feel it's time to make room for new comedies".

Robert Lindsay said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph: "I'm amazed by the public's love for the series [...] When Kris Marshall left in 2005 I was convinced that was it.

Each of the eleven series were released on DVD both individually and as a box set in the UK, minus the Christmas specials.