Felicity Kendal, who played Barbara Good in BBC sitcom The Good Life between 1975 and 1977, said she witnessed three shocking mobile phone robberies in the space of just three days
05:48, 29 Nov 2025
Felicity Kendal, a household name on our TV screens, frightened off a mugger in London(Image: Getty Images)
British acting legend Felicity Kendal became a have-a-go hero to frighten off a mugger.
The TV star, 79, told how she witnessed three mobile phone robberies in the space of just three days in London. However, she intervened during one offence — and found her courage was enough to deter the crook.
Felicity was driving along a road in Chelsea, west London, when a gang of men on bicycles swarmed a young woman on her phone. The actress tooted her horn, which startled one of the men enough to drop the phone and the woman was able to retrieve it.
Speaking of the incident, Felicity, who has lived in Chelsea since the 1960s, said today: “A woman was parked there and they had taken her phone, just like that. It was over in seconds.
“I was driving down Draycott Avenue the next day when I saw a young woman walking and suddenly a few bikes swarmed around her. It was like Spaghetti Junction. They grabbed her phone and they started to speed off. Something in me snapped, so I banged the horn and yelled and one of the lads dropped the phone. The woman got it back.”
READ MORE: Brit charity worker killed in Africa after being mugged by two menREAD MORE: Knightsbridge stabbing: Three arrested as dad killed in front of screaming partnerFelicity was in the popular 1970s sitcom The Good Life with Richard Briers(Image: PA)
Felicity, who played Barbara Good in BBC sitcom The Good Life between 1975 and 1977, shared the harrowing ordeal in an interview with local news website The Chelsea Citizen — but insisted she wasn’t brave.
The veteran performer, who was raised in Solihull, West Midlands, continued: “It was just instinct. I did nothing really. I wasn’t facing a knife. I just shouted. But these gangs are so brazen. They just think they will get away with it – and they’re not wrong. I saw another phone snatched the next day in Sloane Square, but there was nothing I could do… Crime was never like this before. The phone-snatching is appalling. I have never known anything like it. Within three days I saw three.”
The actress opens next week in a revival of Indian Ink at Hampstead Theatre in the capital, directed by the experienced Tom Stoppard to whom Felicity dating for seven years until 1998. She is also considering selling her beloved four-storey house in Chelsea, which has become too big to manage since her husband, Michael Rudman, died in 2023 and her son, Jake, moved out.
Felicity, who in ITV drama Rosemary & Thyme between 2003 and 2006, said: “I’m happy to move on when the time is right. I have always loved living in Chelsea, so I can’t imagine being anywhere else.”
The Mirror developed an interactive crime map recently which revealed the neighbourhoods in Britain where you’re most likely to be mugged, carjacked or robbed, according to police data.
