Penelope Keith

Acting

Penelope Keith

Born 1940-04-02 · Sutton, Surrey, England, UK

Dame Penelope Anne Constance Keith, DBE, DL (née Hatfield; 2 April 1940 – 29 June 2026) was an English actress and presenter, active in all genres, including radio, stage, television and film and primarily known for her roles in the British sitcoms The Good Life and To the Manor Born.

Acting credits

Coming Home poster
5.4

Drama about the Dunar and Carey-Lewis families, before during and after WW2.

Coming Home

1998

Priest of Love poster
5.0

Following the banning and burning of his novel, "The Rainbow," D.H. Lawrence and his wife, Frieda, move to the United States, and then to Mexico. When Lawrence contracts tuberculosis, they return to England for a short time, then to Italy, where Lawrence writes "Lady Chatterley's Lover."

Priest of Love

1981

Carry On Doctor poster
6.5

Francis Bigger, a notorious charlatan who tours the country lecturing on the subject of mind over matter, slips off the platform in the middle of his performance and ends up in hospital under the care of Dr Tinkle. The hospital is about to enter a period of total chaos.

Carry On Doctor

1967

Every Home Should Have One poster
4.9

Teddy works for a large advertising company. Given the seemingly impossible task of selling frozen porridge, he decides to produce commercials that make the product seem sexy. This leads him to confrontation with the "Keep Television Clean" movement, of which his wife is a senior member.

Every Home Should Have One

1970

Secret Ceremony poster
6.1

A penniless woman meets a strange girl who insists she is her long-lost mother and becomes enmeshed in a web of deception, and perhaps madness.

Secret Ceremony

1968

A Touch of Love poster
6.6

Intellectually driven doctoral student Rosamund Stacey, while undertaking graduate work at the British Museum, becomes pregnant after a brief affair with a television newsreader. Against the advice of her best friend, Lydia, Rosamund chooses to keep the baby and adjusts her life to include both her studies and her pregnancy. However, when the baby is born, an unforeseen complication threatens the self-sufficient life Rosamund plans for herself.

A Touch of Love

1969

Aladdin poster
5.6

A young man's life is turned around with the help of a genie inside a lamp.

Aladdin

1992

The Hound of the Baskervilles poster
4.4

When a nobleman is threatened by a family curse on his newly inherited estate, detective Sherlock Holmes is hired to investigate.

The Hound of the Baskervilles

1978

No artwork available
6.5

Movie with some of the greatest brittish comedians such as Rowan Atkinson, John Cleese.

The Funny Blokes of British Comedy

2005

Take a Girl Like You poster
5.8

Young Jenny heads to the South of England to start a new career as a school teacher. Even before she has had a chance to settle in she meets Patrick, one of the local "lads". Within a short time she has her hands full when a number of the local boys take a liking to her. But who will be the lucky one who wins her affections?

Take a Girl Like You

1970

Beauty and the Beast poster
4.0

As a merchant sets off for market, he asks his three lovely daughters what they would like as a present upon his return. His youngest daughter, who he adoringly calls Beauty, replied. "All I'd like is a rose you've picked specially for me." Remembering his promise to Beauty he plucks a rose, enraging the owner of the rosebush, a fearsome boarlike beast who inhabits the nearby castle. The Beast agrees to spare his life, but on one condition, that he brings him the daughter for which he plucked the rose.

Beauty and the Beast

1992

Penny Gold poster
6.0

While investigating a murder case, a detective stumbles upon a rare-stamp swindle involving the victim's twin sister.

Penny Gold

1973

Spider's Web poster
7.2

Clarissa, the wife of a Foreign Office diplomat, is given to daydreaming. 'Supposing I were to come down one morning and find a dead body in the library, what should I do?' she muses. Clarissa has her chance to find out when she discovers a body in the drawing-room of her house in Kent.

Spider's Web

1982

Rentadick poster
4.2

Armitage runs a chemical company that is on the verge of producing a gas that causes temporary disability. Clearly the military want it but it is also sought by a group of Japanese. Both Armitage and Madam Greenfly hire different people in the same detective agency to guard the gas and steal it respectively... confusion, double crosses and hilarity ensue...

Rentadick

1972

No artwork available
NR

Lonely people in a quiet hotel find their lives shaken up by the arrival of the glamorous, assertive Helen Lancaster.

Waters of the Moon

1983

Private Lives poster
6.8

Divorced couple Amanda and Elyot have both recently remarried. On their honeymoons, however, they discover that they have accidentally booked adjoining suites at the same hotel. Containing some of Coward's best dialogue, the play revolves around the agonising realisation that despite their ferocious incompatibility, they are still drawn to each other.

Private Lives

1976

Margery and Gladys poster
7.7

Haughty housewife Margery and her cleaner Gladys go on the run after mistakenly believing that they have killed a teenage burglar.

Margery and Gladys

2003

Eric & Ernie: Behind the Scenes poster
NR

A history of the British television comedy double act Morecambe & Wise to coincide with the BBC drama about their early lives.

Eric & Ernie: Behind the Scenes

2011

No artwork available
NR

Michael Frayn's play about a college reunion.

Donkeys' Years

1980

Ghost Story poster
4.9

Several old college friends converge at a mansion, ostensibly for a pleasant reunion. Larry Dann, the most easygoing of the bunch, comes to the conclusion that all is not well in the old dark house. For one thing, he's run across several people whom he's never met. For another, they all seem to be of a different time and place.

Ghost Story

1974

Hay Fever poster
6.0

Set in a British country house in the 1920s, Hay Fever follows the outlandish bevaiour of the Bliss family when they each invite a guest to spend the weekend. Best described as a cross between high farce and a comedy of manners, Hay Fever is one of Coward's most popular plays.

Hay Fever

1984

To the Manor Born: Britain's Best Loved Comedy poster
NR

A feature-length special retrospective of one of Britain's most beloved sitcoms, with new and archival interviews and footage examining the production and enduring cultural impact of the BBC's 'To the Manor Born'.

To the Manor Born: Britain's Best Loved Comedy

2024

All About The Good Life poster
NR

What was it really like behind the scenes of The Good Life? With contributions from Richard Briers, Penelope Keith, Monty Don, Brian Sewell and John O'Farrell.

All About The Good Life

2010

No artwork available
NR

A film biography by David Jones with Freddie Jones as John Clare "I am - yet what I am, none cares or knows" (John Clare) John Clare (1792-1864), farm labourer, had three obsessions: his youthful love for Mary Joyce, the countryside of his native Northamptonshire, and the need to celebrate both in his poetry. Clare cracked under the increasing strain of poverty and neglect, and spent the last 23 years of his life in Northampton General Lunatic Asylum. He imagined himself to be Lord Byron, a bigamist, and a prize-fighter; but the poems of his madness are perhaps the most remarkable he ever wrote. "Clare's asylum foretells our need for an asylum, his deprivation foretells our deprivation" (Geoffrey Grigson) Commentary spoken by Tony Church (from BBC Midlands) (David Jones and Patrick Stewart are members of the Royal Shakespeare Company; Tony Church appears by permission of the Northcott Theatre, Exeter)

John Clare: "I Am"

1970