Keeping Up Appearances: My Way or the Hyacinth Way

Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced "bouquet") goes to incredible lengths in her quest for perfection. Hers is a spick-and-span house. Her downtrodden husband, Richard, acts as chauffeur in their immaculately kept car. Their permanently absent son has a superior name, Sheridan. Even the empty milk bottles sparkle on the doorstep after their obligatory rinse in the dishwasher. Hyacinth delights in her "candlelit suppers", but her guests live in fear of receiving her invitations. Next-door neighbor Liz is so nervous that she is guaranteed to break or spill something. Her brother Emmet hides every time he sees Hyacinth. And the Buckets' distinguished friend, the Major, and the vicar and his wife all do their best to keep out of her way. In marked contrast to Hyacinth's meticulously ordered life, however, the rest of her family are as common as muck. They live together in a rundown house that looks like a junkyard. Sister Daisy and her husband, Onslow, are out-and-out slobs. Her other sister, Rose, is an aging tart. And her elderly father is a lecherous drunk, given to cycling stark-naked down by the canal, chasing the milkwoman. Whatever Hyacinth does, her family can always be guaranteed to show her up. Can she ever live down the disgrace?

Includes every episode from series one:
The Name is B-U-C-K-E-T
Welcoming the Dishy Vicar
Visiting and Acquaintance's Stately Home
A Fate Worse Than Senility
Our Daisy and Her Toy Boy
How to Manage a Family Christening

Episode 1 - Daddy has sustained an injury while chasing the milkwoman on his bicycle. He was found, naked, and is now heavily sedated in hospital. Major Wilton-Smythe offers Hyacinth flowers for her candlelit supper table, but when she arrives at his conservatory to collect them, she also receives unwelcome amatory advances.

Episode 2 - Hyacinth has asked the new vicar to tea and, in her usual meticulous fashion, she has organized the event down to the last sugar lump. Meanwhile at Daisy’s house, Rose is threatening suicide, broken-hearted over Mr Hepplewhite, who has gone back to his wife.

Episode 3 - Hyacinth looks forward to soaking up a little culture at her favorite stately home.

Episode 4 - Hyacinth is at her wit’s end, what with the charity shop, Councilor Nugent, Rose’s love life and her Daddy! Can she cope?

Episode 5 - Hyacinth’s social standing at a church function is jeopardized when Daisy tries to encourage Onslow to become more ardent.

Episode 6 - Hyacinth enjoys a quiet family christening - for a few moments at least until pandemonium breaks loose.

Cast

Hyacinth Bucket	---	Patricia Routledge
Richard Bucket	---	Clive Swift
Elizabeth	---	Josephine Tewson
Onslow	---	Geoffrey Hughes
Daisy	---	Judy Cornwell
Rose (Series 1)	---	Shirley Stelfox
Rose (Series 2-5)	---	Mary Millar

Production Credits

Written by Roy Clarke
Directed by Harold Snoad
Produced by Harold Snoad
Film Editing by Andy Quested
Costume Design by Rita Reekie, Laura Ergis

British Comedy Awards?
1991-Top Television Comedy Actress- Patricia Routledge

?A tour de force of slapstick humor and weirdness ... Ms Routledge squeezes every bit of humor out of this juicy role. Her voice is an imperious Thatcherlike bark, her face is a rubbery wonder and she is a panic scrambling up a neighbor?s hedges or falling off a pier, all in a fruitless attempt to keep up appearances. But Ms Routledge is more than a gifted clown; she is a superb monologuist as well. Part of each episode consists of Hyacinth fielding phone calls ... [and] part of Ms Routledge?s gift ? and that of the show?s writer and creator, Roy Clarke ? is to make them as real as Onslow, Richard and the rest.?- Wall Street Journal

?Keeping Up Appearances gets better and better. The finest sitcoms are driven by monsters ... and Hyacinth Bucket (sorry, Bouquet) is right up there with the best.? -Sun

?Roy Clarke?s sitcom is consistently entertaining, and Patricia Routledge?s portrayal of infuriating, manners-mad Hyacinth Bucket is nothing short of brilliant. Her attempts to ingratiate herself with the local well-to-dos and her efforts at etiquette are guaranteed to make any viewer?s toes curl in delighted embarrassment.?- Today

Clive Swift chose an acting career after his father discouraged him from joining the family furniture business. He claimed Clive was such a dreamer, he would ruin the business in two weeks.