Felicity Kendal (actress)

Felicity Ann Kendal (born 25 September 1946) 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, including Barbara Good in the television series The Good Life from 1975 to 1978. Kendal was born in England, but moved to India with her family aged seven. Her father was an English actor-manager who led his own repertory company on tours of India, and Kendal appeared in roles for the company both before and after leaving England. She appeared in the film Shakespeare Wallah (1965), which was inspired by her family. Kendal made several television appearances, starting with Love Story in 1966, and made her London stage debut in Minor Murder (1967) at the Savoy Theatre. She was approached to appear in The Good Life while appearing in The Norman Conquests, and appeared in all four series. She later went on to star in the sitcoms Solo (1981–82) and The Mistress (1985 and 1987) which were scripted by Carla Lane. Later television work included The Camomile Lawn (1992), which, as of 2022, remained the most-watched drama ever on Channel 4. However, the poor reception to the 1994 sitcom Honey for Tea led Kendal to focus on stage rather than television work for some years. She co-starred with Pam Ferris on television in Rosemary & Thyme (2003–2006) as one of a pair of gardeners and detectives. Kendal's stage career blossomed during the 1980s and 1990s when she formed a close professional association with Tom Stoppard, starring in the first productions of many of his plays, including On the Razzle (1981), The Real Thing (1982), Hapgood (1988), and Arcadia (1993). She also appeared in ten plays directed by Peter Hall, from portraying Constanze Mozart in Amadeus (1979) to Esme in Amy's View (2006). She took her first role in a musical as Evangeline Harcourt in the 2021 London revival of Anything Goes at the Barbican Theatre. In 2023, she starred as Dotty Otley in Noises Off at the Phoenix Theatre and the Theatre Royal Haymarket. Many of her stage performances have been critically acclaimed. Kendal was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1995 New Year Honours for services to drama. Felicity Ann Kendal was born on 25th September 1946 in Olton in Solihull, Warwickshire England. She is the younger daughter of Laura Liddell and actor and manager Geoffrey Kendal. Her older sister, Jennifer Kendal, was also an actress. After early years in Birmingham, Kendal lived in India with her family from the age of seven: her father was an English actor-manager who led his own repertory company on tours of India. The ensemble would perform plays from a repertoire including Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan to audiences that included schoolchildren, nuns, British expatriates, and royalty. As the family travelled, Kendal attended six different Loreto College convent schools in India, until the age of 13. She contracted typhoid fever in Calcutta at the age of 17. Kendal made her stage debut for her family's company aged nine months, when she was carried on stage as the changeling boy in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Five years later she was the Changeling in the same play, and aged nine she was Macduff's son in a production of Macbeth. Her first speaking role was as Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream when she was 12. Kendal's family and their touring theatre company were the inspiration for the Merchant Ivory Productions film Shakespeare Wallah (1965), which follows the story of nomadic British actors as they perform Shakespeare plays in towns in post-colonial India. She played Lizzie Buckingham, the daughter of the company's actor-managers, who falls in love with the son of film star Manjula, portrayed by Madhur Jaffrey. Lizzie's parents face a dilemma between their deep-seated theatrical ambitions and their fears for the welfare of their daughter. The Observer film critic Kenneth Tynan wrote a positive review of the film, and considered that the role of the daughter was "fetchingly played by the dumpling-faced Felicity Kendal". Patrick Gibbs of The Daily Telegraph named Kendal as his actress of the year, and said that, based on her portrayal of Ophelia in an extract from Hamlet within the film, her performance of that role would "rank with any that [he had] seen". Speaking to The Daily Telegraph journalist Jasper Rees in 2006, Kendal said that her time in India was "sometimes very hard, sometimes very poor, sometimes ghastly, ghastly, ghastly in all sorts of ways", she did not regret it, and that it was an "amazing way of living". She also felt that it prepared her for a career in theatre as she did not have any established expectations about how things should be. Aged 17, she moved to England, initially living with her aunt. Kendal appeared in two episodes of Love Story in 1966, and as a teenage hippie in "The May Fly and the Frog", an episode of The Wednesday Play which starred John Gielgud, the same year. Her other early TV roles included parts in Man in a Suitcase (1967), The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1968–69), The Woodlanders (1970) and Jason King (1972). In 1975, she appeared as Princess Vicky in Edward the Seventh. In his article about Kendal for the Museum of Broadcast Communications Encyclopedia of Television, David Pickering wrote that in the early years of Kendal's television career, "Producers liked her girlish good looks and bubbly confidence and audiences also quickly warmed to her." Kendal had her big break on television with the BBC sitcom The Good Life, which started in 1975. She and Richard Briers starred as Barbara and Tom Good, a middle-class suburban couple who decide to quit the rat race and become self-sufficient, much to the consternation of their snooty but well-meaning neighbour Margo (Penelope Keith) and her down-to-earth husband Jerry Leadbetter (Paul Eddington). Kendal appeared in all 30 episodes, which extended over four series and two specials, until 1978. BBC Head of Comedy Jimmy Gilbert, who had commissioned The Good Life as a showcase for Briers, saw Kendal and Keith perform in the play The Norman Conquests and felt they would suit the roles of Barbara and Margo. Briers approached Kendal in her dressing room and suggested she read for the part. Kendal later recounted she was keen to get the part, both because she needed work and because she felt a rapport with Briers, who was already established, having appeared regularly in television shows since 1962. The show's producer John Howard Davies also went to see the play, and Kendal and Keith were both given parts. Eddington also had stage acting experience, and the show's co-writer Bob Larbey felt that having a cast of actors, rather than a comedian as a central figure, made writing episodes easier. In her 1988 book White Cargo, Kendal reflected that the lead actors' stage experience and their attitude "to be actors first and stars second" was an important factor in the show's success. She commented that from the beginning, "we slotted into a way of working together that was fun, fast and furious ... all extremely professional, ambitious and hard-working, and our dedication to the show was total." She also felt that Larbey and his co-writer John Esmonde tailored the scripts so that they were for the "actors and characters combined". Although Barbara has her doubts about Tom's plans for self-sufficiency at first, she supports him emotionally and practically. The cultural historian Mark Lewisohn commented that it was obvious that Barbara and Tom "enjoy a great marriage, being fully attuned to one another's needs and desires". The British Film Institute's page about Kendal, written by Tise Vahimagi, argues that the four lead characters were relatable, "with Kendal standing out as the epitome of friendly suburban sexiness in her tight blue jeans". On the institute's page about The Good Life, Mark Duguid wrote that "Felicity Kendal's lively, sexy