Archers actress Boyd dies aged 94

Published Thursday 22 May 2008 at 12:30 by Patrick Newley

Actress Margot Boyd, who played Marjorie Antrobus in the BBC Radio soap The Archers, has died at the age of 94.

Boyd was given the role as a small-one off part in 1984, while working for the BBC Radio Drama Company, but the producers were so impressed she was written into the soap as a regular character. She played the role for 20 years and made her final appearance in September 2004.

Looking back on the series Boyd said: “When I first looked at the script, it was one of the funniest things I had ever read. In my seventies I would have been mad not to have taken it on. I’ve always loved working on radio anyway. It demands such precision and discipline to get the timing right.”

Born Beryl Billings in 1913, Boyd trained at RADA before going into repertory. She went on to play character and leading roles in the West End and throughout the fifties and sixties appeared on radio and on television. In 1957 she had her own TV series Our Miss Pemberton.

In 1960 when she was asked to audition for Noel Coward for the lead in his new play Waiting in the Wings, a comedy about old actresses in a retirement home. She got the part and starred in the play for two years in company with Sybil Thorndike and Lewis Casson.

On her 90th birthday, by then the oldest member of The Archers’ cast, the BBC hosted a special party for her at BBC Pebble Mill in Birmingham.

She died on May 20 in Denville Hall, the actors’ retirement home in Middlesex. A full obituary will appear in The Stage newspaper.