Happy days

Dame Penelope Keith shares her memories of making The Good Life 50 years ago

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NEW FACTUAL The Good Life: Inside Out Tuesday, 9pm, U&Gold

BBC1's hit comedy The Good Life ran for just three years between 1975 and 1978 and had only 30 episodes, yet it remains one of the nation's best-loved sitcoms and can even count the late Queen among its fans.

Written by John Esmonde and Bob Larbey, it starred Richard Briers as Tom Good who, with his wife Barbara (Felicity Kendal), embarked on a self-sufficient lifestyle in the leafy London suburb of Surbiton, much to the horror of the couple's class-conscious neighbours, Jerry and Margo Leadbetter (Paul Eddington and Dame Penelope Keith).