Penelope Keith to star in programme celebrating 50 years of The Good Life

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.
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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.
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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.
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"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.
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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."
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The Good Life: Inside Out will air on U&Gold later this year.

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