It's Not Easy Being Green is a television series on BBC Two starring Dick Strawbridge and focusing on how to live an environmentally friendly, low impact life. To date there have been three series.
Series one followed former Lieutenant-Colonel Dick Strawbridge, his wife Brigit, son James, and daughter Charlotte as they moved into Newhouse Farm, a 400-year-old listed building in Cornwall, England from Malvern, Worcestershire. The series documented the family's attempts to convert the building and garden into a comfortable yet entirely ecologically friendly place to live. The show was perhaps unique in that the family did not want great sacrifices in achieving their goal, and Dick Strawbridge said "I don't want to wear a hemp shirt and hairy knickers, I want a 21st-century lifestyle with a coffee machine".
In the first series they received advice from permaculture expert Patrick Whitefield and green auditor Donnachadh McCarthy. They were also helped by friends Jim Milner and Anda Phillips as well as at points a small army of friends and relatives. A book entitled ‘It's Not Easy Being Green: One Family's Journey Towards Eco-Friendly Living’ ISBN 0-563-49346-1 by Dick Strawbridge was released to accompany the series and is still available to buy.
Series two mostly focused on the Strawbridges helping others to achieve their eco-friendly goals, rather than on their own residence. Series three broadcast in 2009, took on more of a "magazine" format, incorporating various regular features including the series-long renovation of a townhouse using "green" materials and techniques and interviews with celebrities about how ecologically friendly (or otherwise) their own lifestyles are. Lauren Laverne appeared as a regular reporter in the third season, and James Strawbridge also had a larger role as co-presenter.
The series takes its title from the first line of the song "Bein' Green" (most famously associated with Kermit the Frog).
Read more about It's Not Easy Being Green: Newhouse Farm, Series 1 (2006), Series 2 (2007), Series 3 (2009)
Famous quotes containing the words easy and/or green:
“It is not easy to make our lives respectable by any course of activity. We must repeatedly withdraw into our shells of thought, like the tortoise, somewhat helplessly; yet there is more than philosophy in that.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“On the green they watched their sons
Playing till too dark to see,
As their fathers watched them once,
As my father once watched me;”
—Edmund Blunden (1896–1974)