Victor Meldrew, the central character of the show, is an early-retired man who sees the worst in everything and everyone, which, to be fair, is quite understandable considering how much catastrophe befalls him. His life fulfils Murphy's Law par excellence, and disaster, it seems, continually strikes him in many creative, bizarre and random ways in pretty much every aspect of his life.

Even when things are going fairly well, however, he can still always manage to find something to moan about. In fact, he's rarely found to be not whinging about something or other. Moreover, his desperately lacking people skills cause him to enter into arguments with pretty much whomever he encounters. In many ways, and especially in his very on-going petty rowing with neighbour Patrick, Victor could be described as fairly childish. Part of the problem with him, though, is that since he's retired, he's been very bored and most of his problems arise because of the ways he ties to find things to do to pass the time; boredom proves dangerous in his life! His other key problem is that he wants to right all the wrongs in the world and other dislike him interfering in their affairs.

"The man is a cretin ... of the highest order."
(A character reference from next-door neighbour Patrick, 1991 Special)

Margaret is Victor's long-suffering wife, who often innocently and unwittingly is caught up with Victor's bizarre misfortunes, and gets dragged into his arguments. She spends a lot of time apologising to Pippa for Victor's squabbling with Patrick, over which they build a long-lasting relationship. Despite losing her temper with him with great regularity, she loves Victor deep down, so her patience seems never-ending. Her marriage to Victor appears to leave her with ill-health, as she suffers from both nervous exhaustion and a heart attack, which might well be put down to the stress of her decades of marriage to Victor!

"Doctor says it's nervous exhaustion mainly, it's been building up over the last thirty-five years"
(So this is the result of being married to Victor, then; Episode 4:2)

Jean is Margaret's best friend although she can be a bit on the irritating side, and is also a bumbling calamity case running into many calamaties. She's tactless but easily offended, and for the first few series was paranoid about her husband's (un)faithfulness. Unfortunately this drove him away from her!

"She was just a gibbering old bat who dropped by twice a week to polish off our digestive biscuits! A plague of locusts with ear-rings!"
(Victor's not-so high opinion of Jean; One Foot in the Algarve Special)

"I mean, you couldn't hope to keep this place spotless and I wouldn't expect it."
(One of many examples of Jean's tactlessness; Episode 5:1)

Nick is outstandingly enthusiastic and excitable about absolutely everything in life but with the odd depressed moment; he comes across as generally quite an odd chap, almost eccentric. He lives alone with his mother, whom we never actually see, and this makes Victor very suspicious of him/them. Besides which, Victor finds his enthusiastic attitude to everything to be most irritating, whilst Margaret thinks he is very endearing and nice. He works in the care sector for the elderly and infirm, and continually speaks in a highly condescending way like a children's television presenter whilst also being just as camp, too!

"He's a perfectly pleasant, nice young man"
(Margret thinks highly of Nick, in contrast to Victor; Episode 2:1)

Patrick is suspicious of Victor and enjoys fighting with him in creative ways. Unfortunately it seems Patrick is always noticing Victor's mishaps, and fails to see the occasional moments of normality he has. Pippa suffers Patrick's childish behaviour incessantly and is forever trying to reconcile him and Victor, without success.

"It's one thing to call someone a tosspot to their face, but when you go to the lengths of having it iced on the front of a Thorntons Easter egg..."
(Pippa's tied of Patrick's feuding; 1991 Special)

Pippa swiftly becomes firm friends with Margaret when she moves in next door, and they spend a lot of time laughing and complaining about the eternal battle that continues to rage between Victor and Patrick, as well as continually desperately trying to reconcile them both but always with little success.

"that gormless twerp... next door"
(Victor's insulting reference to Pippa, which she overhears on the answer-phone; Episode 4:6)

Ronnie and Mildred are the Meldrews' odd friends. They're fairly frumpy and boring, and Victor and Margaret always try to put off seeing them as often as possible; they also avoid opening their Christmas presents until they begin to smell bad. Whilst both seem chirpy enough, Mildred eventually kills herself.

"Make sure the chicken soup doesn't have feathers in it this time!"
(Victor has little faith in Mildred's cooking...; Episode 3:6)

Jean's "Cousin Wilfred" is a fairly bland and non-descript bloke who occasionally hangs around with Jean and gets involved in her scrapes. He comes into his own in the last episode he appears in when he mis-types with regularity on his voice synthesiser. He suffers very badly from travel sickness.

"Like having tea with a Dalek!"
(Victor doesn't like Wilfred's voice synthesiser; episode 6:2)