The Good Life: Inside Out: Trailer, certificate and where to watch
Dame Penelope Keith hosts a fun retrospective on the great sitcom
Year: 2025
Queen Elizabeth II didn't make a habit of making her TV favourites clear but she made an exception for The Good Life, the classic suburban sitcom that's being celebrated by one of its stars, Dame Penelope Keith, in this thoroughly enjoyable one-off to mark 50 years since the show began.
Dame Penelope steps back onto the set of the show where she played the wonderfully prim Margo Leadbetter, and there are archive interviews with her co-stars - Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal, who played the make-do-and-mend Goods, and Paul Eddington, who was Margo's husband Jerry.
The show was built around Richard Briers' character Tom, who decided to quit work and turn self-sufficient on his 40th birthday. Briers then saw Keith and Kendal on stage in Alan Ayckbourn's The Norman Conquests, and they seemed like a shoo-in. And as for Jerry? Peter Bowles was the first choice but he turned it down, so Paul Eddington - then a familiar figure in the theatre - stepped in.
Those are the basics and there are plenty of reminiscences from Keith here to fill in the behind-the-scenes stories, including how she nixed the idea of a Leadbetter-centered spin-off, and her recollection of the final episode they staged as a Royal Command Performance for the Queen in 1978. It's a shame that more of the cast aren't around to talk about it - Eddington died in 1995 and Briers in 2013 - but it's a lovely salute all the same. (65 minutes)
