The story concerns a middle-aged middle manager, Reginald "Reggie" Perrin who is driven to bizarre behaviour by the pointlessness of his job at Sunshine Desserts.

The sitcom proved to be a subversion[clarification needed] of others of the era, which were often based on bland, middle-class suburban family life.

[1] A new dramatisation of the original novels by Jon Canter, without the complications introduced in the TV series, was broadcast on BBC Radio Four in November 2022.

He lives at 12 Coleridge Close, part of the 'Poets Estate' in a south London suburb called Climthorpe, a development differing from those around it only by having its streets named after famous poets.

These become increasingly bizarre ("defective junction box, New Malden" being one of the more plausible ones), reflecting the decline of British Rail and of his own mental health.

After Reggie commits a few reckless acts, including getting out of his car in the lion enclosure at a safari park, he fakes suicide by leaving clothes and personal effects on a beach.

Reggie then opens a shop called Grot, where he sells useless products – like square hoops, round dice and Tom's wine (made from sprouts, nettles and the like) – hoping it will be an interesting failure.

The project is a success until a group of people who have fallen afoul of the "Perrins Peace Keeping Force" trash the place.

Despite only being mentioned (rather than seen) in the previous series, Theresa Watson also became a regular cast member playing Pru, the wife of David Harris-Jones (Bruce Bould).

[3] This follow-up series, made more than a decade after Leonard Rossiter's death, shows Reggie's legacy – a fortune left to friends and family, but with strange conditions.

In the series, Reggie's family and friends are told by lawyer Geraldine Hackstraw that each will inherit one million pounds, on the one condition that they do something totally absurd.

At the end of the first series, Reggie fakes suicide by leaving his clothes on a beach in West Bay, Dorset and running into the sea.

The series introduced catchphrases that entered popular culture in the UK, including Perrin's reflexive apology for a late arrival at the office; his boss CJ's "I didn't get where I am today ..."; the fawning junior executives Tony Webster and David Harris-Jones with their alternating "great/super"; and Perrin's brother-in-law Major Jimmy Anderson, an army officer with no grasp of organisation or leadership, coming to eat because of a "bit of a cock-up on the catering front" (caused in the original novel by his wife's alcoholism).

[5] Although mainly produced on video and shot on studio sets, the series also incorporated innovative surreal escapism through film inserts, notably during scenes in which, whenever his mother-in-law is mentioned, Reggie visualises a hippopotamus trotting along.

Reggie's faked suicide, which formed part of the title sequence, occurred at West Bay, Dorset, with the East Cliff visible in the very opening shot.

The morning trains' constant lateness in the earlier series is usually blamed on incidents at actual stations along the railway from Norbiton and Kingston to Waterloo.

The supporting cast members were Fay Ripley, Wendy Craig, Geoffrey Whitehead, Neil Stuke, and Lucy Liemann.

In 2019 it was announced that a stage musical adaptation was in development written by Jonathan Coe and David Quantick with Mike Batt writing the songs.