Veteran of so many comedy programmes

Comedy actress Sheila Steafel has died at the age of 84.

Her agent Barry Langford broke the news on Twitter, posting: ‘Very sadly I can officially confirm that our multi talented client Sheila Steafel has passed away after bravely battling leukemia. Sheila was a comedy giant, and she will be hugely missed by Simon and I. We were proud to have been her agents.’

Over a long TV career she appeared in many comedies, including Dave Allen At Large, The Kenny Everett Television Show, The Frost Report and  Skyes. And she was a regular in the BBC One music hall programme The Good Old Days in the character of Miss Popsy Wopsy, who invariably wound up chairman Leonard Sachs. In 1982 she had her own self-titled Channel 4 show.

She was best known to radio listeners as a stalwart of the weekly Radio 4 satirical show Week Ending in the 1970s and 1980s, where she voiced many characters, including Margaret Thatcher.

Among those paying tribute were Gyles Brandreth, who called her ‘hugely talented’, and broadcaster Greg Scott tweeted: ‘So saddened to hear about Sheila Steafel. Admission time: In my mid teens, I had a MASSIVE crush on her. I think it was her scatty humour that pushed her from "quite attractive" to "impishly sexy". She was so NATURALLY funny, which set her apart from many other comedy actresses.’

Writing her obituary in The Guardian, comedian Toby Hadoke described her as ‘a versatile and bewitching character actor with an outstanding gift for comic timing’, adding: ‘Her features were distinctive, and she deployed them to comedic advantage. Her lidded eyes could be languidly seductive or quizzically innocent, her brows could arch sardonically while her face remained still, and a wry kink in her lips could curl into a feline smile, accentuated by her high cheekbones.’

Steafel was born in Johannesburg on May 26,  1935, but lived all her adult life in the United Kingdom training at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art.

Dramatic roles included the films  Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 AD, Quatermass And The Pit and Back to the Secret Garden and the daytime TV show  Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators, on which she appeared last year .

Steafel was married to Steptoe and Son actor Harry H. Corbett from October 1958 until August 1964 and her 2010  autobiography was entitled When Harry Met Sheila. In 2012, she also published a collection of real-life short stories under the title Bastards.

Broadcaster and journalist Samira Ahmed added that she was ‘one of the greatest funny, versatile women I grew up inspired by on screen. And as the sceptical Fleet Street journalist investigating Martian goings-on underground in Quatermass and the Pit, I will always salute you. Good bye.’

Published: 27 Aug 2019