To The Manor Born

To The Manor Born

1979 - United Kingdom

In 1968 writer Peter Spence wrote a radio series for Penelope Keith and Bernard Braden in which she played a superior upper-class widow who has to move out of her stately manor when her husband dies, leaving her with mounting debts, and he as the American businessman who purchases her former home. To make matters worse, Keith's character, Audrey fforbes-Hamilton, can only afford to live, rent-free, within the grounds of her former estate in a humble coach-house. A pilot show was recorded and in due course...completely forgotten about (never even being aired) for almost eleven years. During that time Penelope Keith was elevated to national celebrity status by the hit BBC sitcom The Good Life, in which her character, Margo, was no doubt based (if only in part) on the fforbes-Hamilton role that almost never was. 

When The Good Life finally ended in 1978, the BBC, eager to cash in on Penelope Keith's popularity, wiped the dust off To The Manor Born, brought in experienced comedy producer Christopher Bond, and made one or two character changes in order to transfer the sitcom (which had by now appeared in printed form) to television. 

The first change was the character of Richard Devere (superbly realised by the super-smooth Peter Bowles), who changed nationality from American to English -but with distant Czech ancestry. Accompanying fforbes-Hamilton is her loyal but decrepit butler, Brabinger (John Rudling) and her close friend Marjory Frobisher (Angela Thorne), who is far more tolerant of Devere, who Audrey sees as both common and vulgar. Eventually though, as in all good love stories, the two antagonists mellow towards each other and fall in love, until, in the final episode (three series later), they get married and go off to live happily ever-after. 

To the Manor Born was another comedic resounding success for the channel that specialised in comedic resounding successes, attracting audiences of up to and sometimes over 20 million viewers. The final episode, aired on 29 November 1981, pulled in an audience of 24 million, a record for a sitcom that stood for fifteen years before being overtaken by Only Fools and Horses. In January 1997 To the Manor Born came full circle when ten episodes (six adaptations and four specially written) aired on BBC Radio 2, with both Keith and Thorn reprising their roles, and Keith Baron stepping in for Peter Bowles.

Published on February 8th, 2019. Written by Laurence Marcus (2001) for Television Heaven.

Read Next...

And Mother Makes Three

Almost a direct follow on from the BBC's hugely popular Not In Front Of The Children starring Wendy Craig who was in an almost constant state of domestic discord...

Also tagged Britcom

The Ravelled Thread

Set in Portsmouth in 1864, John Lucarotti’s 'The Ravelled Thread', is a story of secrets and lies and a plot that could drag England into the American Civil War.

Also released in 1979

Shoestring

Radio host is also a private investigator. Not so much a private eye - but a 'private ear.'

Also released in 1979

Clarence

Ronnie Barker plays a short sighted delivery man who falls in love with a maid and moves to the country with her.

Also tagged Britcom

Executive Stress

Two of British comedy's most popular stars came together for this highly original and cleverly written series.

Also tagged Penelope Keith

The Dustbinmen

The Dustbinmen were led by their foreman, the foul-mouthed, beret-wearing Cheese and Egg, and accompanying him on the Corporation Cleansing Department dust cart were an equally obnoxious crew of work-shy, housewife-lusting individuals.

Also tagged Britcom

Only When I Laugh

Set in an NHS hospital where the same three seemingly permanent patients, all congenital hypochondriacs, are forever playing a game of one-upmanship with each other, much to the irritation of the house surgeon.

Also starring Peter Bowles

No Job for a Lady tv series

Jean Price is the idealistic, newly-elected Labour Party Member of Parliament - trapped in a man's world, a place where bureaucracy and blather cheerfully co-exist...

Also starring Penelope Keith

The Bounder

Peter Bowles and George Cole in a comedy about an ex-convict who, upon release from prison for fraud, goes to live with his sister and brother-in-law and begins immediately to disrupt their happy marriage

Also starring Peter Bowles