Penelope Keith to star in programme celebrating 50 years of The Good Life
The actress and presenter, 85, played Margo Leadbetter on the show, which follows a couple who convert their garden into a farm
(Image: Sergeant Rupert Frere RLC )
Dame Penelope Keith is to star in a special programme celebrating 50 years of sitcom The Good Life.
The actress and presenter, 85, played Margo Leadbetter on the show, which follows a couple who convert their garden into a farm.
The feature-length retrospective, titled The Good Life: Inside Out, will revisit set locations and look at props and artefacts from the programme's development, including original scripts and production notes.
Dame Penelope will take viewers through the course of the sitcom's history and will be seen stepping back onto the set in a version of Margo and Jerry Leadbetter's drawing room, recreated by production company Double Yellow.
Dame Penelope said: "I am delighted that (comedy channel) U&Gold has invited me to celebrate 50 years of The Good Life, a series that was important to me and is still so well loved by viewers.
"I have such happy memories of making The Good Life – it was a wonderful cast and we were working with excellent scripts and a first rate production team.
"The only thing I can't really believe is that it's 50 years since I first played Margo... where have the years gone?"
The 120-minute special will also include archival interviews with co-stars Richard Briers, Felicity Kendal and Paul Eddington, as well as producer director John Howard Davies.
The quintessential British sitcom ran for four series on the BBC from 1975 to 1978.
Kendal played Barbara Good in the sitcom while the late Briers played her husband Tom and Eddington, who died in 1995, played Margo's husband Jerry.
In 2010 a documentary titled All About The Good Life, celebrating the show's 35th anniversary, aired on the BBC.
Helen Nightingale, head of factual and factual entertainment at broadcaster UKTV, said: "For a show to be remembered so fondly and to be such a reference point in British everyday conversation as The Good Life after 50 years is testament to its quality, and this new retrospective with Double Yellow will explore just how and why the show has endured."
Article continues below
The Good Life: Inside Out will air on U&Gold later this year.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mirror
6 minutes ago
- Daily Mirror
Richard Osman 'rejected' role in Netflix's Wednesday and hints who he would have played
The Thursday Murder Club author Richard Osman has made a surprising revelation about his connection to Netflix's Wednesday. Richard Osman has disclosed that he was invited to audition for Netflix series Wednesday, dropping hints about the character he might have portrayed. Three years have passed since Wednesday became a worldwide sensation on Netflix, with Jenna Ortega breathing new life into the wickedly amusing character of Wednesday Addams. The second series is now poised to launch with the opening four episodes arriving tomorrow, Wednesday, August 6, and anticipation for the fresh season has hit fever pitch. The Netflix smash hit featured amongst the subjects Richard Osman discussed with co-presenter Marina Hyde on his podcast The Rest Is Entertainment, where he stunned both Hyde and audiences with a surprising revelation. During the closing moments of the episode, Osman disclosed: "They asked me to audition for a role in Wednesday. I couldn't do it. "But I assume because of my height and, I assume because it's the Addams Family, I assume there's some sort of tallness in it." Recognised for his BBC smash series Pointless alongside Alexander Armstrong and numerous other quiz programmes, Osman is instantly identifiable due to his towering frame, as he measures an impressive 6ft 7in tall. Whilst the 54-year-old didn't reveal which character he was meant to audition for in Wednesday, given the role's physical requirements, it's thought Osman could have portrayed the Addams family's manservant Lurch. The role of the silent henchman, originally played by 6ft 3 actor George Burcea in Wednesday season one, has been taken over by former basketball player Joonas Suotamo, who towers at an impressive 6ft 11. Hyde was shocked by Osman's revelation, exclaiming: "Oh my God! Sorry, no, I did not know that and I cannot believe you didn't do it!" He went on to say: "I can't remember why I couldn't do it...I'm not an actor in any way whatsoever, not interested in being an actor. "But the biggest show in the world, you're like 'maybe', I just thought 'for the podcast'. "Do everything for the podcast!" Hyde chuckled, adding: "It'll be fun if I was in that for the podcast." Meanwhile, Osman has been occupied with his novel The Thursday Murder Club, which has been adapted into a Netflix film featuring Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley and Celia Imrie. Osman, who is an executive producer on The Thursday Murder Club, will see his project debut on Thursday, August 28.
Telegraph
8 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Parts of David Attenborough's latest series filmed in fish tank, BBC admits
The BBC has admitted that part of Sir David Attenborough's latest nature series was filmed in specialist 'tanks' rather than in the wild. Key segments in the corporation's new Parenthood series, narrated by Sir David, could not be filmed 'in situ' in order to protect the species involved, according to the producers. Skeleton shrimp, boxer crabs and Banggai cardinalfish were among the animals filmed in 'a specialist filming environment' to ensure family bonds and habitats were not disturbed. Specialist tanks and 'incubation units' were therefore used – in part – to help the BBC capture 'the intimate relationships between parent and their offspring '. Jeff Wilson, the series producer and director, and Olly Scholey, its producer, insisted that the balance in these relationships could 'be easily upset' by interference. Writing in an online article about the series for the BBC, they explained: 'In the world of wildlife filmmaking, affecting the behaviour of your subjects is a line we work hard not to cross, and these parenting relationships are incredibly fragile. 'In many cases, across the series, we are also dealing with species that are no bigger than a thumbnail … [meaning] that we needed to design the sequences with specific macro-technologies and careful use of light. 'So often, teams filming in these situations needed to tread carefully, or in this case, paddle carefully – and at times, we were forced to use specialist filming tanks to ensure that we got the balance absolutely right.' One such example featured in the opening of the Freshwater episode, which sees hundreds of thousands of Amazon river turtle hatchlings following their mothers to the water. However, the moment of actual hatching could not be captured in the wild because of the 'sensitive condition of the unhatched eggs underground'. 'To do so would mean risking the survival of the young themselves,' Wilson and Scholey explained. Instead, the filming crew for the natural history series worked 'hand-in-hand' with Brazilian scientific researchers and their incubation unit to 'create a specialist environment' where hatching could be captured. Similarly, producers needed to create 'a specialist filming environment' of see-through tanks to tell the parenting stories of skeleton shrimps as well as Banggai cardinalfish. Previous fakery claims The decision to film in specialist tanks rather than disrupt the animals' natural habitats follows wildlife filming's unofficial non-intervention rule. The BBC has previously been embroiled in accusations of fakery in its natural history documentaries, including a Frozen Planet sequence in 2011 in which a polar bear appeared to give birth in the Arctic, but was in fact filmed in a Dutch zoo. The corporation also admitted that a sequence filmed for an episode of Human Planet, also in 2011, misled viewers by giving the impression the tallest treehouses built by Papua New Guinea's Korowai people were used as homes. However, the broadcaster has said since these incidents it has strengthened training for its Natural History Unit in 'editorial guidelines, standards and values'.
Daily Mail
8 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Man, 70, pleads guilty to stalking Anna Friel by leaving her unwanted gifts and turning up at her home
A man has pleaded guilty to stalking actress Anna Friel for nearly three years, by leaving her unwanted gifts and turning up at her home address. Phil Appleton, 70, admitted stalking involving serious alarm or distress during a hearing at Reading Crown Court on Monday. The court heard he had pursued a course of conduct 'which had a substantial adverse effect on her usual day-to-day activities'. Some of the specific acts included sending unwanted emails, attending her home address and leaving gifts. A previous hearing heard that the actress was concerned she might see the defendant at a a 'health club' they both attended. Friel currently stars in BBC drama Unforgivable, a harrowing story about a family who deal with the devastating aftermath of an act of sexual abuse committed by a member of their own family. On the first day of what would have been Appleton's trial last Monday, the court heard Friel was unable to attend because of commitments she had in relation to the production. Jai Patel, prosecuting, also said Friel and her daughter had asked for permission to attend the trial and give evidence by video link because of 'genuine fear and distress'. James Bloomer KC, defending Appleton, said his client was intending to run a defence of insanity and asked for the trial to be adjourned so that a further medical report to be obtained. Appleton, of Springfield Road in Windsor, Berkshire, had been in custody for five months since he was arrested over the offence, which ran from January 1 2022 to December 11 last year, most recently spending time in a psychiatric hospital. After admitting the offence, he was remanded in custody to HMP Bullingdon and a sentencing hearing is scheduled for Thursday.
