Dame Penelope Keith returns to The Good Life for TV special 50 years after its debut

Even though the sitcom is 50 years old, for many the dream of growing your own vegetables is still something to aspire to today. And now is to look back and star in a special programme celebrating 50 years of ’s The Good Life.

The quintessential British sitcom ran for four series on the BBC from 1975 to 1978. Actress and presenter Dame Penelope, 85, played Margo Leadbetter on the show, which follows a couple who convert their garden into a farm. And she has returned to the set of the programme for a feature-length retrospective on comedy channel U&Gold, titled The Good Life: Inside Out, which will revisit filming locations and look at props and artefacts from the programme's development, including original scripts and production notes.

Dame Penelope will also take viewers through the course of the sitcom's history and will be seen stepping back onto the set in a version of Margo and Jerry Leadbetter's drawing room, recreated by production company Double Yellow.

Dame Penelope 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?"

The 120-minute special will also include archival interviews with co-stars Richard Briers, Felicity Kendal and Paul Eddington, as well as producer director John Howard Davies.

Kendal, 78, played Barbara Good in the sitcom while the late Briers played her husband Tom and Eddington, who died in 1995, played Margo's husband Jerry. Briers died in 2013 after suffering from a lung condition.

In 2010 a documentary titled All About The Good Life, celebrating the show's 35th anniversary, aired on the BBC.

Recalling how she landed her role, Felicity Kendal recalled: “I was in a play called The Norman Conquests in the West End, Richard was in the audience and after the show he came round and said he thought it was great, which was really nice because he was a very famous, wonderful actor that I didn’t know at all but I knew about.

"He said, ‘I’m going to do this little television series, may I send you the script for the part of the wife? It’s a new series, it may not do well because it’s a very unusual subject.’”

But the show went on to be a huge hit with one special pulling in an audience of 21 million.

Helen Nightingale, head of factual and factual entertainment at broadcaster UKTV, 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.”

• One-off special The Good Life: Inside Out is set to air on U&Gold later this year.

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