Richard Briers enjoyed a distinguished five-decade career spanning film, television, stage and radio. He first gained prominence in the 1960s sitcom Marriage Lines, but became a household name as Tom Good, the draughtsman who abandons the rat race to pursue self-sufficiency, in the BBC comedy The Good Life (1975–1978). Beyond comedy, he collaborated extensively with Kenneth Branagh on Shakespearean stage and film productions, playing roles including Polonius in Hamlet and Leonato in Much Ado About Nothing — work that showed a range far beyond the gentle sitcom character audiences most associated him with.