the early 1960s, Courtneidge appeared in a succession of plays in London and the provinces, including The Bride Comes Back, and also in pantomime and a re-creation of old music hall (Fielding's Music Hall, 1964). In 1962, she gave what she considered her finest film performance, in a role wholly unlike her usual parts; in The L-Shaped Room she played an elderly lesbian, living in a drab London flat with her cat, recalling her career as an actress and forlornly trying to keep in touch with former friends. The Times described her performance as a triumph. In 1962 and 1963, she and Hulbert starred alongside Vic Oliver, in the BBC radio sitcom, Discord in Three Flats (1962). In 1964, Courtneidge accepted the role of Madame Arcati in the London production of High Spirits, a musical adaptation of Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit. This was an unhappy episode in her career. Coward himself co-directed, and the two clashed constantly in rehearsal. The notices for the piece were dreadful, and those for Courtneidge's performance scarcely better: The Guardian wrote of "a woeful excess of underplay", and The Observer commented, "The sight of Cicely Courtneidge hamming it until she drops in purple harem knickers with diamanté cycle clips isn't honestly hilarious enough to carry the evening." The last London production in which the Hulberts appeared together was a well-reviewed revival of Dear Octopus at the Haymarket Theatre in 1967 with Richard Todd, Joyce Carey and Ursula Howells. Courtneidge, in the part originally made famous by Marie Tempest, won uniformly excellent notices. In 1969, Courtneidge turned to television, playing a working-class role as "Mum" in the first series of the LWT comedy On the Buses, opposite Reg Varney. In about 1970, Courtneidge and Hulbert were engaged by the impresario Pieter Toerien to perform in John Chapman's Oh, Clarence! in Cape Town, South Africa. Courtneidge's theatre work in the 1970s included tours of Agatha Christie's The Hollow and Peter Coke's Breath of Spring, both with Hulbert. In 1971, Courtneidge starred in the farce Move Over, Mrs Markham at the Vaudeville Theatre, playing "a prudish authoress from Norfolk, bemused by all the flying exits, unexpected entrances, and atmosphere of incipient carnality." During this, her last West End run, she celebrated 70 years on stage. In 1972 she was appointed DBE. In 1976, she and Hulbert toured in a semi-autobiographical revue, Once More With Music. One of her