Penelope Keith: a class comic of mischief dies aged 86

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. 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 in the theatre foyer, magisterially commenting: “Busy lady!” and sweeping out.

The mischief was also there from the start. At the RSC she gained a certain notoriety even as one of the crowd in Julius Caesar when her voice pierced the throng with “Ave an ear then.” She went on to star as an acid-tongued murderee in Francis Durbridge’s Suddenly at Home and found comedy to be her forte with her performance in Alan Ayckbourn’s The Norman Conquests.

penelope keith, good life, manor born, sitcoms, lincoln theatre, rsc, julius caesar, alan ayckbourn, norman conquests, francis durbridge