Retrospective hosted by Dame Penelope Keith

Dame Penelope Keith is to host a two-hour retrospective about The Good Life to mark 50 years of the classic sitcom.

The show – about a middle-class couple who quit the rat race to become totally self-sufficient in their suburban house in Surbiton – first aired on BBC One on April 4, 1976.

Now 85-year-old Dame Penelope, who played the Goods’ snooty neighbour Margo Leadbetter, is to front the documentary for U&Gold. 

She said: ‘I am delighted that 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?’

She starred along Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal as the couple going back to basics, and Paul Eddington as Margot’s long-suffering husband Jerry.

The retrospective, called The Good Life: Inside Out, is being made by Double Yellow Entertainment, who reconstructed Jerry’s drawing room as the set for the new programme.

It will also include rarely seen archival interviews with all the sitcom’s stars plus producer director John Howard Davies, as well as revisiting filming locations and discussing pivotal props.

It was commissioned by Helen Nightingale, UKTV’s head of factual and factual entertainment programmes, who 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.’

Gerald Casey, the broadcaster’s director of comedy programming, added: ‘The Good Life is truly British comedy heritage, and we’re honoured to be opening the vault to a wealth of new material and footage, all helmed by the wonderful Dame Penelope Keith.’

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

Published: 29 May 2025