Dame Penelope Keith obituary

Penelope Keith, right, as Margo Leadbetter in the BBC comedy series The Good Life, with, from left: Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal as Tom and Barbara Good, and Paul Eddington as her put-upon husband Jerry. Photograph: BBC

Between 1975 and 1981, the actor Penelope Keith, who has died aged 86, secured a position of unassailable popularity in two of the biggest television sitcoms since the second world war.

In The Good Life, by John Esmonde and Bob Larbey, she was the overbearing suburban neighbour Margo Leadbetter; in To the Manor Born, by Peter Spence, she was the displaced semi-aristocratic, semi-impoverished widow Audrey fforbes-Hamilton, compelled to yield her estate to an arriviste wholesale grocer and live in the coach house.