Felicity Kendal

Felicity Ann Kendal CBE (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 as Barbara Good in the 1975 television series The Good Life. Kendal was born in Olton, England, and moved to 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, 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 one of the founding members of the Actors Company in 1972, with Ian McKellan and others. She was initially 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 televison work included The Camomile Lawn (1992), which as of 2022 it 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 pair of gardeners and detectives.

Her 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 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 the London revival of 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 in Olton, England, in 1946. 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.[10]

Kendal made her stage debut for her family's company aged nine months, when she was carried on stage as a 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. Her 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".[11] Patrick Gibbs of The Daily Telegraph named Kendal as his actress of the year,[12] and that based on her performance as Ophelia in an extract from Hamlet within the film, her performance of that role would "rank with any that [he had] seen".[13]

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.[14]

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.[15][14] Her other early TV roles included parts in Man in a Suitcase (1967),[16] 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.[17] 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."[18]

Kendal had her big break on television with the BBC sitcom The Good Life (1975–77).[19] 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).[20][21] Kendal appeared in all 30 episodes, which extended over four series and two specials from 1975 to 1978.[22][21] BBC Head of Comedy Jimmy Gilbert, who had commissioned The Good Life as a showcase for Briers,[23] saw Kendal and Keith perform in The Norman Conquests and felt they would suit the roles of Barbara and Margo.[20] Briers approached Kendal in her dressing room and suggested that she read for the part.[24] Kendal later recounted that 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.[25] The show's producer John Howard Davies also went to see the play, and Kendal and Keith were both given parts.[24] 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.[25] 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.[26] 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."[27] She also felt that Larbey and his co-writer John Esmonde tailored the scripts so that they were for the "actors and characters combined".[28]

Although Barbara has her doubts about Tom's plans for self-sufficiency at first, she supports him emotionally and practically.[29][30] 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."[30] 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".[31] On the Institute's page about The Good Life, Mark Duguid wrote that "Felicity Kendal's lively, sexy Barbara won her the adoration of millions of British men" in a very popular show that was a "gentle social satire of the suburban middle-class".[21] For Pickering, Kendal's "whimsical, puckish charm and endearingly good-humoured outlook made her ideal for the role".[18]

After a low-key start, the programme quickly became popular, attracting audiences of about 14 million for new episodes.[27][32] By the last episode, Esmonde and Larbey felt that the main storylines had come to a natural end, and decided not to write further episodes.[27] The last regular episode aired in May 1977 and was followed by a 1977 Christmas special.[33] The cast reunited for a 1978 Royal Command Performance.[27] It has often received repeated showings on the BBC, typically at prime viewing times, and the repeats typically attracted high audiences.[34]

The film and television studies scholars Frances Bonner and Jason Jacobs contended that although The Good Life was consistently a reference point across the coverage later careers of each of the lead actors, this was most pronounced in the case of Kendal.[32] Kendal has maintained that the character of Barbara Good is very dissimilar to her as a person.[32] In a 2010 interview, she said of her close association with the character that "[The Good Life] is always on some channel or another. I think it's rather nice. It's following me like a good fairy."[35] She added that while the other lead characters were like people that the viewers might know personally, Barbara "had all the ingredients – feisty, strong but adoring, up for anything, very funny – that people find attractive".[35]

Davies was so impressed by the performances from Kendal, Keith and Eddington that when he was Head of Comedy for the BBC, he gave them all starring roles in new series: Yes Minister for Eddington, To The Manor Born for Keith, and Solo (1981–82) for Kendal.[36] Carla Lane wrote Solo, in which Kendal played the lead role of Gemma Palmer, who decides to split from her boyfriend and live independently.[37][38] Lane also wrote The Mistress (1985 and 1987) in which Kendal portrayed a florist having an affair with a married man, played by Jack Galloway in 1985 and with a different character played by Peter McEnery in the 1987 version.[37][31] Both Solo and The Mistress were positively received,[37] although some viewers were disappointed by the lack of innocence displayed by Kendal's character in The Mistress compared to that of the Barbara Good character.[39] Bonner and Jacobs commented that "As Barbara, her sexiness was contained in the loving relationship with her husband, but her subsequent casting in the TV sitcoms Solo (1981–82) and The Mistress (1985–87) reveals even in their titles a making of her imaginatively available for the lustful viewer."[32] The media scholar Mary Irwin considers that Kendal has avoided being typecast in roles of "acquiescent girlfriend or supportive wife", and that in Solo and The Mistress she "cut through commonplace binaries situating sitcom women as either bimbos or battleaxes".[40]

The Camomile Lawn (1992) starred Kendal as Helena Cuthbertson, whose property encompassed a mansion and the lawn in the title.[41] Eddington played her husband Richard.[41] Attracting over seven million viewers, as of 2022 it remained the most-watched drama ever on Channel 4.[41] However the 1994 sitcom Honey for Tea starring Kendal was later described by Maureen Paton of the Daily Telegraph as "an unmitigated flop".[42] Her American accent in the show was mocked by TV critic and humourist Victor Lewis-Smith: "In a single phrase, she veered uncontrollably from the Bronx to South Africa via Surrey, like some linguistic Spruce Goose, awkwardly taking off only to crash-land again within moments."[43]

Having focused on her theatre rather than her television career for some years following the poor reception to Honey for Tea,[42] in 2003 Kendal co-starred with Pam Ferris in Rosemary & Thyme as a pair of gardeners and detectives.[44] Kendal's character Rosemary Boxer is a University of Malmesbury lecturer in applied horticulture.[45] The show was negatively reviewed, but still popular with viewers, becoming the most viewed new drama series on ITV1 in 2006.[44] Vahimagi wrote that despite "pleasantly skittish performances" from the leads, the show was a "peculiarly dispiriting addition to the list of British detective drama".[31]

Kendal auditioned unsuccessfully for Val May at the Bristol Old Vic in early 1966.[46] Some months later, she auditioned for Tynan and Laurence Olivier National Theatre season at the Old Vic, again without success.[46] She made her London stage debut in Minor Murder (1967) at the Savoy Theatre.[47][48] Kendall and Tessa Wyatt played two friends who murdered the mother of one of them, in a play inspired by the Parker–Hulme murder case.[48] She was cast as Amaryllis in the 1969 production of Back to Methuselah at the Old Vic.[14][49]

In 1972, actors Ian McKellen and Edward Petherbridge, after discussion with director David William, formed the Actors' Company, a collective group with members invited by them.[50] The actors would all receive equal pay and would rotate between leading and supporting roles, with posters listing their names in alphabetical order.[51] The founding members were Caroline Blakiston, Marian Diamond, Robert Eddison, Robin Ellis, Tenniel Evans, Kendal, Matthew Long, Margery Mason, McKellen, Frank Middlemass, Juan Moreno, Petherbridge, Moira Redmond, Sheila Reid, Jack Shepherd, Ronnie Stevens and John Tordoff.[52] As part of the company, Kendal played The Maid in Ruling the Roost, and Annabella in 'Tis Pity She's a Whore at the 1972 Edinburgh International Festival.[53] Kendal had departed to look after her new baby by the time the group reconvened in Summer 1973.[54]

Kendal won the Variety Club's Best Stage Actress Award for her performance as Marain in Michael Frayn's Clouds (1978) at the Duke of York's Theatre, London.[55]

In 1979 she was directed by Peter Hall for the first time, as Constanze Mozart in Amadeus. She later recounted that her experience in the production "taught me to focus on the play rather than the role".[56] A recording with the original cast was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 1983.[57] Her 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).[58][59] The Stoppard scholar Paul Delaney wrote in 1990 that Kendal "first dazzled Stoppard audiences when she went On the Razzle, and created the poignant role of Annie in The Real Thing before playing Dotty in the 1985 revival of Jumpers, [in Hapgood] gives a towering performance in the most complex role Stoppard has ever written for a woman.[60] In his 2002 biography of Stoppard, Ira Nadel remarked that "Hannah Jarvis in Arcadia is, perhaps, the quintessential Kendal role: energetic, inquisitive, strong and possessed with a touch of The Good Life's vibrant celebration of nature."[61]

Kendal and Stoppard started a romantic relationship that lasted for eight years from around November 1990.[59] His radio play In the Native State (1991) had a dedication "To Felicity Kendal", and, according to Delaney, it "seemed in some ways to be not only for and by but also about Kendal".[59] It was adapted for the stage as Indian Ink (1995) and both versions starred Kendal as Flora Crewe, a poet who moves to India and develops a friendship with an artist played by Art Malik who paints her portrait.[62] The Daily Telegraph critic Charles Spencer found Kendal's performance by turns "funny, mischievous" and "exceptionally touching".[62] Stoppard also made a new translation The Seagull by Anton Chekhov specifically so that Kendal could play Madame Arkadina (1997).[63]

She won the Evening Standard Theatre Award in 1989 for her performances in Much Ado About Nothing and Ivanov.[64] Gerard van Werson of The Stage wrote that as Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, Kendal "delights ... with her remarkable charm and her beautiful comic timing".[65]

The critic Sheridan Morley felt that Kendal was "rapidly becoming out most expert player of classic farce" after seeing her in Mind Millie for Me, an adaptation of a Georges Feydeau farce at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, London in 1996.[66] Later that year, Geoff Chapman of the Toronto Star described Kendal as "once a television sitcom star but now a huge West End draw in serious parts".[67]

Her 2003 performance as Winnie in Happy Days by Samuel Beckett was acclaimed by The Guardian' s Michael Billington, who praised Kendal for bringing a "genuine emotional reality" to the role.[68] She starred as Esme in the West End revival of Amy's View (2006) by David Hare, which was her tenth collaboration with director Peter Hall. Hall's "sensitive direction" allowed Kendall to "resoundingly [achieve] both Esme's barbed humour and her sadness" according to Heather Neil of The Stage.[69] She appeared in the West End as Florence Lancaster in a revival of Noël Coward's play The Vortex in 2008.[70] In Variety, David Benedict felt that "playing her as a woman who overacts strains Kendal's ability to reveal truthful emotion in the final act".[70]

In 2013, she starred in the first London revival of Relatively Speaking by Alan Ayckbourn at Wyndham's Theatre.[71] Later that year, she toured the UK with Simon Callow in Chin-Chin, an English translation by Willis Hall of Francois Billetdoux's Tchin-Tchin.[72] In 2014, she toured the UK[73] and Australia as Judith Bliss in Noël Coward's Hay Fever, which then played in the West End in 2015.[74]

She took her first role in a musical as Evangeline Harcourt in the 2021 London revival of Anything Goes at the Barbican Theatre.[75][76] In 2023, Kendal starred as Dotty Otley in the London revival of Noises Off at the Phoenix Theatre and the Theatre Royal Haymarket.[77] The Daily Telegraph reviewer Marianka Swain felt that Kendal was "more brilliant than ever" in the role.[78]

On the album Shape Up and Dance with Felicity Kendal (1982), Kendal narrated a keep-fit routine based around yoga and ballet.[61][79] It spent 13 weeks in the top 40 of the UK Albums Chart, peaking at number 29 in 1983,[80] and went on to sell over 200,000 copies.[61]

In 1995, Kendal was one of the readers of Edward Lear poems on a specially made spoken-word audio CD bringing together a collection of Lear's nonsense songs.[81]

Kendal's first marriage to Drewe Henley (1968–1979) and her second to Michael Rudman (1983–91) ended in divorce.[82] Kendal has two sons: Charley from her marriage to Henley and Jacob from her marriage to Rudman. She reunited with Rudman in 1998, and they remained partners until he died on 20 March 2023.[83]

Kendal was brought up in the Catholic faith. She converted to Judaism at the time of her second marriage, but has stated about the conversion, "I felt I was returning to my roots."[84] Her conversion took more than three years; she has stated that her decision to convert had "nothing to do" with her husband.[85] Kendal's memoirs, titled White Cargo, were published in 1998.

In 1981 Kendal was named Rear of the Year. The award was created by publicist Anthony Edwards to promote specific brands of jeans by attracting media attention.[86] In 2001, she was included in a list of the "Top Ten TV Sex Bombs" in a Channel 4 programme.[42] When asked by The Guardian in 2010 whom she would invite to her "dream dinner party", Kendal replied "Emmeline Pankhurst, Gandhi, Byron, Eddie Izzard, George Bernard Shaw, Golda Meir and Marlene Dietrich."[10]

Kendal was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1995 New Year Honours for services to drama.[87] She is an ambassador for the charity Royal Voluntary Service, previously known as WRVS.[88]

Kendal's first two stage appearances were for her family's company, in England.[89] Having played a changeling boy in A Midsummer Night's Dream when she was nine months old, she was the Changeling in the same play five years later.[89] After the company returned to Asia, her roles included Macduff's son in Macbeth, Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Jessica in The Merchant of Venice, Ophelia in Hamlet, and Viola in Twelfth Night.[89]