The Good Life elevated Penelope Keith from well-respected minor actress to the status of a fully-fledged star, and her next sitcom, To The Manor Born, proved to be equally as popular. She had already proved adept at milking laughs out of snobbery, and so was ideal in the part of Audrey fforbes-Hamilton, a well-to-do, upper-class elitist who falls on hard times following the death of her husband. So desperate are her financial straits that Audrey is forced to sell her husband's huge Grantleigh Estate and thus move out of its stately manor house, the manor to which she has become accustomed and into the humble coach-house in the grounds. To make matters worse, the new owner of the manor is a nouveau-riche businessman, Richard DeVere, a man of distant Czech ancestry whom Audrey views as rather common and vulgar because he made his millions in the wholesale grocery business. Accompanying fforbes-Hamilton on her 'downward spiral' is her loyal but decrepit butler Brabinger, and her close friend Marjory Frobisher. Audrey tries to come to terms with her new social standing and the real world of launderettes, buses and supermarkets, but her deeply ingrained feelings of superiority, and her natural tendency to want her own way, cause her many problems. Slowly, however, she mellows and begins to consider that she may have misjudged DeVere, who seems to have hidden depths and, after all, is rather dashing. After the initial love-hate relationship that has developed - the antagonism all coming from her - it eventually, inevitably, becomes love-love.