Dame Penelope Keith: TV favourite is still living The Good Life

Dame Penelope Keith might seem to be to the manor born but in fact she is a very down-to-earth lady who likes nothing better than growing and weeding in the great outdoors.

It is second nature to her to enjoy the good life and, even at 80, she is still having fun both on stage and screen and in her English country garden.

“I have never separated from Margo of The Good Life and I still get letters from people who watched the show when they were very young and have grown up and seen it again years later,” said Penelope.

“They write to say how much they still enjoy it and so do their children and even grandchildren. It’s lovely to hear that, although it could start to make me feel old, if I let it. I don’t though.”

It doesn’t seem quite right to think that Penelope Keith is now 80. She certainly doesn’t look it and she is still very active both in front of the cameras and away from her work.

She sounds like Margo and also Audrey fforbes-Hamilton – her character in To The Manor Born – but life has not always been like that for her.

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Penelope was born in Sutton, Surrey just about six months after the Second World War started. Her father was an Army officer but he and her mother, Connie, split up while Penelope was still little more than a baby.

“We lived in Clapham for a while until we were bombed and lost everything,” she recalled. “I think I probably learned even then as a little girl, not to place too much value in material things. That probably sounds a bit rich for someone who has played the parts I have played, but it is how I feel about things.

“We went and lived with my grandmother who was quite forward-thinking and liked things that were new. She would often buy something new and just throw away whatever it was replacing. There were some lovely things that were simply chucked out. I still have a carver chair from those days but that’s all except some amazing memories.

“I was about six when I started at boarding school but I used to still get time with my mother, who was a great parent and very thoughtful. We used to go to the matinee theatre performances quite often and we always had chocolates but she used to unwrap them before the performance began so as not to disturb anyone in the theatre.

“That is probably where my desire to be an actress started. I loved the theatre and thought it was a very magical place.

“At school I used to take part in plays and so on and I learned a very important lesson. I was always much taller than the other girls of my age and I didn’t really fit in with them that much, so I used to joke around a lot. That worked and it taught me that comedy will always make you acceptable.

“The school plays really gave me a launching pad. There was a Sister at the school, Sister Celestine, and she saw my love of drama and thought that I had an aptitude for it, so she encouraged me to take the lead in the numerous plays we did and we even entered the Brighton Festival, which was a big step up in those days.”

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So, the talent was there from an early age but so was the height and that threatened to make life difficult for Penelope.

“When I was old enough I applied for a place at the Central School of Speech and Drama but I was turned down because they said I was too tall,” said Penelope.

“I was 5ft 10ins and that was considered too tall. I didn’t have that problem when I went to the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, so that was good and it didn’t stop me getting an apprenticeship in rep, which proved to be invaluable.

“I did encounter a height problem when I first started getting television work though. On one set they made me enter with my knees bent because they could not get me fully into shot. It was ridiculous really but I was only just starting out and I didn’t want to say anything that would lose me the job, so I entered as requested, doing my best to look elegant with my knees bent.

“Years later there was another problem with my height but I was a bit more experienced and much better known then, so instead of asking me to bend my knees, they asked the male actor I was working with to wear some other shoes that would increase his height.”

Although we associate Penelope Keith with superb comedy, she has really done it all – thrillers, musicals and Shakespeare. She joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1963 and learned even more of the trade.

“Shakespeare is quite challenging because the characters have many facets and I think if you can hold your own playing Shakespearian roles you become an all-round actor. It certainly has helped me in my career.”

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What a career she has had. From small appearances in Dixon Of Dock Green, The Army Game and The Avengers among others, Penelope landed on her feet with The Good Life from 1975-78.

“My career had been building before The Good Life came along and I had been on stage for several years, smaller TV roles and films. When The Good Life came along, Margo was only a small part but audiences liked her for some reason and she just grew and grew.

“It was the career boost that everyone needs and since then I have been very happy in To The Manor Born and other TV shows, both drama and presenting things like Penelope Keith’s Hidden Villages; I am also on stage regularly and doing all sorts of other things.”

Those “other things” are quite breathtaking as they include being president of the local branch of the National Trust in the Surrey area in which she lives; president of the Actors Benevolent Fund, which she took over after the death of the previous president – Lord Olivier – and even a spell as High Sheriff of Surrey.

All that and she still finds time for gardening and, of course, being a wife and mother.

“I met my husband, Rodney, when I was in Chichester in 1976,” she said. “I was at a rehearsal and he come to have a look at security. I wasn’t sure what to say to him so I just smiled, I am told that it is a good thing to smile at a policeman. He smiled back and promptly asked me out.

“Two years later we got married and then some years later we adopted our sons. We have been together ever since and as close as ever.”

What’s next for Penelope?

“It won’t be retirement, that is certain,” she said. “I don’t feel old enough to even consider it. There are more villages to explore and more scripts to read, so I shall be busy for a while yet. I never look at a script for the storyline but to see how it is written. It is the skill of the writing that makes it a success.

“Times change and sitcoms change but it is interesting that the old sitcoms are being seen by new generations who find them funny, that’s quite a compliment in the world in which we now live.

“There are some strange perceptions in today’s world. I have been told I speak ‘posh’ but if I do, that is because when I was at school we all had elocution lessons.

“The idea was not that we would be ‘posh’ but simply that people could understand us when we spoke. I have no problem with accents – my husband is from the north and we have another home in Scotland, where there are other accents. I love Scotland by the way and I love the people.

“So, I am not ‘snobby’ or ‘posh’, I just think that it is good to be able to speak well enough to be understood without someone saying, ‘Wot?’.

“I don’t like the categories we seem to insist upon today. Older people are not more clever than the young, they have just been around longer and have more experience. The young should not be penalised simply for being young. Being tall did not mean that I could not act.

“A superiority complex never did anyone any good – just ask Margo.”