Penelope Keith, star of classic British sitcom The Good Life, dies at 86

Penelope Keith, a comic performer who shone as flinty but lovable upper-crust characters in British sitcoms The Good Life and To the Manor Born, has died aged 86.Keith’s family said on Monday that she had been diagnosed with cancer and died at her home in Surrey, near London.Keith began her acting career onstage and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1963 but she found her greatest fame on television.She won a Bafta (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) award in 1977 for The Good Life, playing Margo Leadbetter, a snobbish suburbanite appalled by her back-to-the-land neighbours Tom and Barbara Good, played by Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal.Kendal called Keith a “comic genius”.“She was a joy to know and work with, and she will be much missed,” Kendal said.Keith displayed a similar mix of imperiousness and deadpan wit in To the Manor Born, broadcast between 1979 and 1981 and brought back for a 2007 Christmas special.Queen Camilla, then-Duchess of Cornwall, right, with Keith in London in 2022. Photo: PA via APKeith played cash-strapped aristocratic widow Audrey fforbes-Hamilton, forced to sell her country estate to a nouveau millionaire, played by Peter Bowles, with whom she has a love-hate relationship.Keith’s velvet tones featured on children’s show Teletubbies and in adverts for everything from Pimm’s to Parker Pens. She also presented cosy documentary television series, including Penelope Keith’s Hidden Villages.Keith continued to perform in stage roles into her 80s. Theatres in London’s West End will dim their lights on Wednesday evening in tribute to her.In 2014 she was made a dame, the female equivalent of a knight, for services to the arts and to charity.Further ReadingShe is survived by her husband, Rodney Timson, and their two adopted sons.