Young Hyacinth

Review

by Ben Dowell

If you’re curious about how Patricia Routledge’s Hyacinth Bucket became the great snob of Keeping Up Appearances you can now travel back to a 1950s canal house where young Hyacinth (Kerry Howard) is living with her sisters and drunk dad and working as a maid in a posh house where she is naturally desperate to replicate the airs and manners of her employers.

Howard’s charmingly faithful tribute to Patricia Routledge’s character and the fab 1950s soundtrack aside, it’s probably just one for the super fans. Keeping Up creator Roy Clarke is at the helm, but his gags frequently fall flat and the premise feels weird, with Hyacinth’s doughty stuck-uppedness seeming a lot less unusual (and therefore less funny) in 1950s England.

Summary

Roy Clarke serves a one-off instalment of his Keeping Up Appearances sitcom, set in the 1950s and focusing on the younger life of its matriarch character. Long before becoming Mrs Bucket, Hyacinth dreams of matching china and a bedroom in pastel shades. Her desperate attempts to transform her sisters and her darling Daddy into an altogether better class of family are not appreciated, and she is frustrated that they cannot be more like the Cooper-Smiths, in whose house she works as a maid. Kerry Howard stars.

Cast & Crew

Hyacinth Kerry Howard

Dulcie Debra Stephenson

Claude Tony Gardner

Daddy Mark Addy

Daisy Katherine Pearce

Rose Katie Redford

Eric Thomas Pickles

Violet Tamla Kari

Freddy Tim Downie

William James Wrighton

Director Sandy Johnson

Producer Sarah Hitchcock

Writer Roy Clarke

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Sitcom