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| As Barbara Good in THE GOOD LIFE 1975 |
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Felicity has appeared frequently on television starting with THE MAYFLY AND THE FROG opposite Sir John Gielgud, TWELFTH NIGHT, BOY MEETS GIRL, THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL, CRIMES OF PASSION, THE DOLLY DIALOGUES, NOW IS TOO LATE, DEADLY EARNEST, THE MARRIAGE COUNSELLOR, HOME AND BEAUTY, FAVOURITE THINGS, and THE CAMOMILE LAWN by Mary Wesley in 1991. Her series include THE WOODLANDERS, EDWARD VII, THE GOOD LIFE (1975-1977 29 x 30 mins episodes & 1 x 45 mins "SPECIAL"), SOLO (1980-1982 13 episodes), THE MISTRESS (1985-1986 12 episodes) and in 1994 12 episodes of HONEY FOR TEA. She most recently starred with Ralph Fiennes in HOW PROUST CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE.
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| As Barbara Good in THE GOOD LIFE 1975 |
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Felicity's most sucessful series to date was THE GOOD LIFE.
There were 30 episodes including a 45 minute special which was taped in front of Royal fans including Queen Elizabeth II.
Kendal's whimsical, puckish charm and endearingly good-humoured outlook made her ideal for the role that was destined to establish her as a television star--that of Barbara Good in the BBC's The Good Life, in which she partnered Richard Briers as a suburban couple determined to lead a life of independent self-sufficiency. Loyal to the point of lunacy, and ever-fetching even in mud-stained jeans and knotted headscarf, she won universal praise as the pert and long-suffering young wife of Briers, striving to understand the frustrations of her wayward cereal designer-turned-smallholder husband as he painfully sought to put some meaning back into his life by turning their Surbiton house and garden into a small-scale farm. The accessibility of the central characters, perfectly played by Briers and Kendal, with Paul Eddington and Penelope Keith as their neighbours the Leadbeatters, ensured stardom for all four of them and a lasting place for all four performers in public affections. As a direct result of the programme's success, the number of smallholdings in Britain shot up to a record 51,000 by 1980.
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| As Viola in TWELFTH NIGHT 1990 |
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After four seasons of The Good Life, the way was open for the four performers to develop their own solo careers. Kendal herself was showcased in two further sitcoms that centred around her alone. In Carla Lane's Solo she returned to the theme of self-sufficiency, playing Gemma Palmer, a vulnerable but resolutely independent 30-year-old woman who throws out her faithless boyfriend and gives up her job in an attempt to reassert control of her life. In The Mistress, a rather more controversial sitcom also written by Carla Lane, she was florist Maxine, trying to cope with the guilt and confusions involved in carrying on an affair with the married Luke Mansel (played by Jack Galloway). Some viewers disliked this last series, objecting to the girlish and rather innocent Felicity Kendal they remembered from The Good Life wrestling with such a dubious issue as adultery as she awaited her lover in her cosy pink flat, in the company of her pet rabbits, and pondered how to keep the affair secret from Luke's suspicious wife (played by Jane Asher). Always an intelligent and sensitive actress, Kendal has been by no means confined to sitcoms, however. By way of contrast, in 1978 she played Dorothy Wordsworth in Ken Russell's biopic Clouds of Glory and later on she appeared with success in the miniseries The Camomile Lawn.
In Honey for Tea (1994), though, she was back in more familiar sitcom territory, playing American widow Nancy Belasco.
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| With Sinead Cusack in TWELFTH NIGHT-1990 |
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