New Delhi, July 2 -- For the millions of British viewers who spent four series in the company of Margo Leadbetter, the character was not someone they were meant to admire. She was the neighbour who disapproved of Tom Good's self-sufficiency project, who confused snobbery with standard-setting, and who suffered every indignity with a wounded magnificence that audiences watched, week after week, with something approaching love. Dame Penelope Keith, who made Margo irreplaceable, died on Sunday. She was 86.

a BAFTA winner across several roles, appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2006 and Dame Commander in 2014, and the central figure in two BBC programmes that still hold places among the most-watched in the network's hist...