Penelope Keith: the amazing sitcom that graced our screens | Television

ATheir broadest, most audience-friendly films are the best of the best: chancers, jobsworths, slobs and snobs. No actress has ever been more deserving than Penelope Keith. Some played funny puppets, but it was a typical walking chart. His greatest strength was his ability to find new colors on the same subject, choosing several types of colors and colors to give each of them more life than the authors expected.

The biggest one, of course, was Margo Leadbetter in The Good Life, which ran from 1975 to 1978. On paper, her work was just giving the opposite. Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal played the leads, Tom and Barbara, two self-confident dreams in shabby clothes who were never happier than when they had dirt under their fingernails. By design, Keith meant to represent the opposite; stubborn and materialistic and surprised by anyone who didn’t follow the group meeting to the letter.

However, if you go back and watch every episode of The Good Life, you’ll see how much fun Margo often has in this series. Dressed in a kaleidoscope of chiffon kaftans, she managed to infuse the character with a subtle flirtation, often directed at Tom. Keith also managed to play him and show that he is hurting himself. With Margo, you feel like a woman who can see what’s going on, and is eager to explore, but is rejected by society’s expectations.

The Good Life introduced Keith to the roles his talent deserved, but Margo may still be his greatest creation. Sitcom characters are often underwritten, but this allowed Keith to play to both of his strengths; name a game moment that can detonate lines like a neutron bomb, and its ability to make what could have been a two-dimensional experience feel like someone you’ve known all your life.

A year after The Good Life, Keith followed her next role as Audrey fforbes-Hamilton in To the Manor Born (1979 to 1981, with a special in 2007). Again, this was as solid as a sitcom would allow: a penniless widow is forced to sell her mansion and move into a cottage, where she watches in dismay as her new wealthy owner (played by Peter Bowles) changes.

This position gave Keith a lot to work with, and his innate rights were challenged by the impotence of his condition. Keith made Audrey into a study of small tragicomedy that was gradually resolved by the actions of the plot. Although the show was seen by millions, it was found to be defeated by softening between the directors, reducing the tensions in the events. But it was a good demonstration of his ability to find colors within a color.

Since then. Keith jumped from sitcom to sitcom. While none of them have had the same impact as The Good Life or To the Manor Born, several still have a lot going for them, often thanks to Keith’s performance. In 1983’s Sweet Sixteen he played a romantic, if surprisingly asexual, role as a naive businessman who falls in love with a lowly employee. No Lady’s Work in 1990 was a twist when Keith played a Labor MP, albeit one who looked and sounded like Penelope Keith.

Keith’s last sitcom work was 1995’s Next of Kin, a dark comedy about a selfish woman with no relationship with her children who is devastated to learn that she has adopted grandchildren after the unexpected death of her son, whom she no longer loves. As it was written, the character was very difficult to like, but Keith was able to draw him as an equal parts broken and damaged. Like Margo and Audrey and almost everyone else she’s played, her brilliant performance begged viewers to see the humanity behind the script.

It’s a tricky trick to pull off, but it’s one that Keith manages to pull off over and over again. No one has been able to play the ruling snobs so accurately in front of him, and it is unlikely that anyone will.