The cast is led by Penelope Keith as Audrey fforbes-Hamilton and Peter Bowles as Richard de Vere. The other main cast members in the original series are Angela Thorne (playing Audrey's old friend Marjory), Daphne Heard (Richard's mother, Mrs Polouvicka), John Rudling (Brabinger the butler), Michael Bilton (Ned, the odd-job man) and Gerald Sim (the Rector). Rudling was absent in the 1979 Christmas special and for much of the second series due to his ill health; his character was temporarily replaced as butler by Ned. Rudling died in 1983. Angela Thorne had worked with Keith before when she had played Lady "George" Truscott in a 1977 episode of "The Good Life". Michael Bilton played Basil Makepeace, a main character in the first four series of the sitcom "Waiting for God" in the 1990s before his death in 1993.