Michele Dotrice makes ordinary domestic lives believable beside outsized comic behaviour. We value the steadiness she brings to Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, though Betty Spencer is given too little freedom to be funny for herself.
Fi1m perspective
Beside Michael Crawford's accident-prone Frank Spencer, Michele Dotrice makes Betty Spencer seem like someone with a life to get on with. In Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em (1973), her naturalistic playing gives the marriage enough credibility to survive the farce. We were grateful for her presence: Frank's repeated mishaps can be wearing, and Betty gives us somebody else to care about. Crawford supplies the conspicuous physical precision, but Dotrice makes the domestic scenes worth attending to between the accidents.
That association with sitcom domesticity came after quite different work. And Soon the Darkness (1970), in which she plays Cathy, and Blood on Satan's Claw (1971), in which she plays Margaret, belong to her early spell in horror thrillers. Serious drama and classical theatre were part of her work before and alongside Betty, rather than a later attempt to escape comedy. The sitcom made her widely recognised, but the typecasting that followed also restricted her opportunities.
Betty remains a good place to see how much supporting comedy depends on the space allowed by the writing. Dotrice's timing helps her hold our attention beside Crawford, but the programme gives her too little room to develop comparable comic freedom. The next accident usually matters more. We like the slapstick, in small doses; a longer stretch makes the unequal attention harder to ignore. Her restraint works, though it cannot supply all the variety that a comedy built around one man's incompetence needs.
Later supporting parts include Mrs Sedley in Vanity Fair (1998), Marion in Inside No. 9 (2015), and work in A Very English Scandal (2018). Her later television work takes in both period and contemporary drama, a useful reminder that the sitcom never accounted for all she did. For a first encounter, though, choose a small dose of Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em and pay attention to the person beside Frank.
Biography
Michele Dotrice is an English actress. Born on 27 September 1948 in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, she comes from a theatrical family; her father Roy Dotrice and mother Kay Dotrice were both actors, as were her sisters Karen and Yvette.
She began acting as a child and had an early significant role as Nell in the 1962 BBC adaptation of The Old Curiosity Shop. In the early 1970s she appeared in horror films including And Soon the Darkness (1970) and Blood on Satan's Claw (1971). She is best known for playing Betty Spencer, the wife of Frank Spencer, in the BBC sitcom Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em (1973–1978), reprising the role in a 2016 Sport Relief special.
Dotrice has appeared in numerous television series and films, including Midsomer Murders, A Very English Scandal (2018) and Blithe Spirit (2020). She was married to actor Edward Woodward from 1987 until his death in 2009.
