Stressed Eric - Overview

Overview

Eric Feeble is 40 years old, still upset over his divorce two years ago, lives in a middle class London house, and is always being kept under extreme amounts of pressure and stress from all aspects of life, represented by a throbbing vein in his temple. His two children, Claire and Brian, plague him with fear and worries every day. Claire is a frail six-year-old who is allergic to a large range of things such as wheat, ponies, spices etc., while Brian is a ten-year-old with learning problems who has been kept back three straight years in school and has an oral fixation. The family's au pair housekeeper, Maria, is an eighteen-year-old Portuguese woman with a serious drinking problem; despite Eric's frequent attempts to keep her under control and focused, she seems to be passed-out drunk for hours at a time, often sprawled on a floor. His ex-wife, Liz, left him for a Buddhist, but she insists on phoning him up incessantly, which merely adds to his growing stress level. The next-door neighbours, the wealthy, successful and snobbish Perfect family, provide him a constant and painful view of what his life could have been.

Eric's workplace is absolutely no escape from his everyday problems. His boss, Paul Power (known as PP), is loud, rude and demanding; he has demoted Eric from Assistant Manager to a low-level clerk in an office sandwiched between the janitor's closet and the men's toilets. His secretary, Alison, is completely useless, spending all her "working hours" making and taking personal phone calls and shrilling rudely at Eric when he requests her attention.

At the end of almost every episode, as the climax of events cause Eric's stress to reach breaking point, the throbbing vein emerges from his temple and wraps itself around his neck, strangling him.