Famous comic actor Brigit Forsyth has died. She was 83.

Forsyth was most famous for playing Thelma, the long-suffering upwardly mobile wife of Bob Ferris (Rodney Bewes) in Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads.

The Times said: "Thelma was not only the ultimate sitcom snob but also a ­benign battleaxe. Her efforts to keep Bob onside as the dutiful, presentable husband she could show off to her chums at the badminton club or at the après-ski were continually thwarted by the chain-smoking, beer-swilling, woman-chasing, feckless best pal. And her attempts to keep up appearances on the Elm Lodge Housing Estate were regularly ruined by Bob and Terry’s drunken escapades."

She also appeared in Doctor Who in The Evil of the Daleks. She also appeared in The Practice in the mid-Eighties, Helen in Boon (1989) and played Madge in all six series of the BBC sitcom Still Open All Hours, which ran from 2013 until 2019. 

But she will be best remembered as Thelma, caught in an eternal threesome with Bob and Terry, played by James Bolam: “I know people always think of Thelma and I don’t mind. It’s my identity and I’m grateful I’m not forgotten. It was a wonderful part. Poor old Thelma. All she wanted was to ­better herself and she never realised Bob was already married — to Terry.”