It’s hard to imagine a more dignified and stately star of British luvviedom than Dame Penelope Keith. There’s the damehood, for one thing. The “Penelope,” for another. The accent too—that hyper-polished, cut-glass trill, like Princess Margaret before all the ciggies; a voice once voted as Britain’s best loved in a BBC poll.
And then there are all of those past roles, such as the haughty Margo Leadbetter in the beloved 1970s sitcom The Good Life—a sort of Schitt’s Creek for British suburbia. In the canon of British national treasures, Keith falls somewhere between David Attenborough, passive-aggression, and inexplicably warm beer. So to see her name in the same sentence as “bullying” and “harassment” is a profound shock to the system, like watching your grandmother break-dance—disconcerting and thrilling all at once.
