The actor’s sophisticated sense of humour and natural ability to make everyone laugh were there long before her famous sitcom roles
A life in pictures
Penelope Keith: the most spectacular sitcom snob ever to grace our screens
Penelope Keith, who has died aged 86, became justly famous for displaying a classy hauteur laced with mischief in TV sitcoms such as The Good Life and To the Manor Born. But I can vouch for the fact that something of that quality, honed by a sophisticated comic technique, lay within Penny herself. I first met her when I worked at Lincoln Theatre Royal, where she was a member of the company, in the early 1960s. I vividly recall her surveying a voluminous exhibition of paintings by a local artist in the theatre foyer, magisterially commenting: “Busy lady!” and sweeping out. Such style and assurance in a 23-year-old was rare.
The mischief was also there from the start. A year or so later I found Penny doing small parts at the RSC where she gained a certain notoriety even as one of the crowd in Julius Caesar: when Mark Antony had urged the citizens to lend him their ears, her voice had been heard to pierce that of the throng with a cry of “Ave an ear then.” She was clearly destined for bigger things and indeed starred as an acid-tongued murderee in the first play I ever reviewed for the Guardian, Francis Durbridge’s Suddenly at Home, in 1971.
Continue reading...
The actor’s sophisticated sense of humour and natural ability to make everyone laugh were there long before her famous sitcom rolesA life in picturesPenelope Keith: the most spectacular sitcom snob ever to grace our s...
See more
