A British sitcom or a Britcom is a situational comedy programme produced for British television.
Richard David Briers was an English actor whose five-decade career encompassed film, radio, stage and television.
Dame Penelope Anne Constance Keith, is an English actress and presenter, active in film, radio, stage and television and primarily known for her roles in the British sitcoms The Good Life and To the Manor Born. She succeeded Lord Olivier as president of the Actors' Benevolent Fund after his death in 1989, and was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to the arts and to charity.
The Good Life is a British sitcom, produced by BBC television. It ran from 4 April 1975 to 10 June 1978 on BBC 1 and was written by Bob Larbey and John Esmonde. Opening with the midlife crisis of Tom Good, a 40-year-old plastics designer, it relates the joys and setbacks he and his wife Barbara experience when they attempt to escape a modern "rat race" lifestyle by "becoming totally self-sufficient" in their suburban house in Surbiton. In 2004, it came 9th in Britain's Best Sitcom. The lead roles are taken by Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal.
Felicity Ann Kendal is an English actress, working principally in television and theatre. She has appeared in numerous stage and screen roles over a more than 70-year career, but the role that brought attention to her career was that of Barbara Good in the 1975 television series The Good Life.
Dame Penelope Alice Wilton, Lady Holm, is an English actress.
To the Manor Born is a BBC television sitcom that first aired on BBC1 from 1979 to 1981. A special one-off episode was produced in 2007. Starring Penelope Keith and Peter Bowles, the first 20 episodes and the 2007 special were written by Peter Spence, the creator, while the final episode in 1981 was written by script associate Christopher Bond. The title is a play on the phrase "to the manner born," from Shakespeare's Hamlet
Hay Fever is a comic play written by Noël Coward in 1924. Its first production was in the West End in 1925 with Marie Tempest as Judith Bliss. A cross between high farce and a comedy of manners, the play is set in an English country house in the 1920s, and deals with the four eccentric members of the Bliss family and their outlandish behaviour when they each invite a guest to spend the weekend. The self-centred behaviour of the hosts finally drives their guests to flee while the Blisses are so engaged in a family row that they do not notice their guests' furtive departure.
Esmonde and Larbey were a British television screenwriting duo, consisting of John Gilbert Esmonde and Robert Edward Larbey, who created popular sitcoms starting from the mid-1960s until the mid-1990s such as Please Sir!, The Good Life, Get Some In!, Ever Decreasing Circles, and Brush Strokes.
Paul Clark Eddington was an English actor best known for playing Jerry Leadbetter in the television sitcom The Good Life (1975–78) and politician Jim Hacker in the sitcom Yes Minister (1980–84) and its sequel, Yes, Prime Minister (1986–88).
Ever Decreasing Circles is a British sitcom which ran on BBC1 between 1984 and 1989, consisting of four series and one feature-length special. It was written by John Esmonde and Bob Larbey, and it reunited them with Richard Briers, who had starred in their previous popular sitcom The Good Life.
The Norman Conquests is a trilogy of plays written in 1973 by Alan Ayckbourn. Each of the plays depicts the same six characters over the same weekend in a different part of a house. Table Manners is set in the dining room, Living Together in the living room, and Round and Round the Garden in the garden.
Story Teller was a magazine partwork published by Marshall Cavendish between 1982 and 1985. It was sold as Story Time in Australia and New Zealand; in Italy Story Teller 1 was sold as I Raccontastorie while Story Teller 2 as C'era una volta)
The Camomile Lawn is a 1984 novel by Mary Wesley beginning with a family holiday in Cornwall in the last summer of peace before the Second World War. When the family is reunited for a funeral nearly fifty years later, it brings home to them how much the war acted as a catalyst for their emotional liberation. The title refers to a fragrant camomile lawn stretching down to the cliffs in the garden of their aunt's house.
Forty Years On is a 1968 play by Alan Bennett. It was his first West End play.
The Mistress is a British sitcom that first aired on BBC2 from 1985 to 1987. Starring Felicity Kendal and Jane Asher, it was written by Carla Lane.
Cyrano De Bergerac (1977) was the final "play" made as part of The Morecambe & Wise Show (1968) and featured in their final festive edition originally broadcast on Christmas Day 1977 on BBC1, achieving the highest ever terrestrial viewing figures of over 28,500,000 people. The play starred Eric Morecambe, Ernie Wise, Penelope Keith and Francis Matthews, with cameo appearances from Valerie Leon, Paul Eddington and Richard Briers. The plot was loosely based on Edmond Rostand's 1897 story of the titular great swordsman and poet, summed up by Morecambe's memorable line: "...my name is Cyrano, a swordsman and poet, woo the ladies to give them a thrill, but right now I'd like your attention, coz I've got my nose stuck in this grill!" The play, such as it is, concludes with the three main stars singing their version of Joan Edwards' "Darn It, Baby, That's Love" with suitably amended lyrics.
Life Beyond the Box: Margo Leadbetter is a 2003 BBC Television comedy docudrama telling the life of Margo Leadbetter, a character from 1975 BBC TV series The Good Life.
Michael Rudman was an American theatre director.
Gordon Drewe Henley was an English actor. He had a variety of roles in film, television and theatre including as Red X-Wing Squadron Leader Garven Dreis in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. He retired from acting due to bipolar disorder. His second wife was actress Felicity Kendal, with whom he had a son, Charley Henley.
