To really like Hyacinth Bucket :)

[twoblackdogs]

She was always clean, well dressed and with not a hair out of place
Her house was always spotless
She never hesitated with what was proper and what was not
She always meant well
She knew all rules and had manners
She loved her son very much
She never doubted herself, not for a moment
She never said no to all church and community things
She was always very cheerful

And this all was extremely insufferable :) because she wanted everybody to live like that, very properly
But if we think a bit... Was it really too bad? No? Or it's better to live like Daisy and Onslow?

Please don't take this too seriously, let's have some fun.

BTW I love Mills and Boon love stories like Daisy does.

I never knew that!

Glad it was not flogged to death as is often the BBC way.

Patricia Routledge is a fine actress and I saw her on stage about 20 years ago fortunately.

She was also "very close friends" with Betty Boothroyd

This is what I said earlier - it was BB, according to anecdote.

Pam St Clement is alleged to be linked to a newsreader. I knew a lady who claimed to have met them both in the village where they lived. Apparently very lovely ladies too.

@Thedayb4youcame I have never seen this before! 😂😂😂😂

Those fish fingers could be anywhere now...they may even be in different breadcrumbs!

Can confirm KUA is/was very popular in Poland, Germany and The Netherlands. I grew up in one of those countries and Mrs Bouquet (lady of the house speaking!) was an awful lot like my gran!

She remains a great source of GIFs :)

A Woman of No Importance was brilliant. I remember one line from it in particular. She says:

"I put the milk bottle out"

So much pathos in the image of that single milk bottle.

It's the "and we/I/she laughed" that got me

Yes, I cringe so much at that... "Weeee laughed!" (big grin).

You know damn well one of them didn't, at least not with sincerity at any rate.

And that's what makes it so sad. She had no one and put so much emphasis on small interactions with others that they wouldn't have given 2 thoughts to.

The standout line for me was when she said the nurse had told her "what would we do without you?" or similar (it's been a while since I saw it), in respect of her helping to distribute the newspapers to her fellow patients.

You are so, so very right.

I cringe, because I see myself in her when if I get to retirement age 😆

I think she's a little bit of all of us. That's the genius of Alan Bennett.

I was listening to wuthering heights on audible; the narrator was hyacinth, I couldn’t take it seriously.

He is a genius, but what a very dark side he must have too. I love Penelope Wilton in "Nights In The Garden of Spain", she had some hilarious lines, but what a terrible, terrible theme behind it all.

Ditto David Haig in "Playing Sandwiches". I cannot watch that at all, and while I appreciate that the year 2020 was the height of anxiety for everyone, I was genuinely shocked to see that this monologue had been recreated for the BBC during that first lockdown.

Similarly, I was stunned to see the actor playing the part that David had played originally. It was all too much for my nerves to handle, what with all that was going on in the world at that time.

what was proper and what was not and loved her son very much

And yet, is entirely consumed by irrelevant exteriors, about how things look and absolutely completely blind to the real nature of things.

How tragic to waste a whole life just 'keeping up appearances' It's the waste that gives it's the bathos. I can hardly bring myself to watch it.

To be fair though, it was only meant to be escapism for those who watched it, it wasn't meant to be taken seriously, it was to laugh along at someone who had all the traits of a number of individuals we all probably knew in real life.

The real irony for me is that in it's day, we laughed and laughed again at a character who lacked such self-awareness and was desperate for the world to know her business and how well she thought she was doing. I mean, can you imagine???

Fast forward 10 years, and we had the dawn of social media. Talk about the truth being stranger than fiction.

Apparently Pope Francis is a fan!
I lived in Australia when it first aired and it was very popular.
I saw an interview with Patricia Routeledge I think it was on Wogan she said HB was a 'monster' I couldn't agree with that.

The History Boys killed Alan Bennett for me, it’s disgraceful.

Apparently, according to Patricia, her character was based entirely on a neighbour she had as a child. That's why she was so brilliant at it.

I like him since watching the podcast on YouTube.

I think they wanted to do more but Patricia wanted to end it and do Hetty Wainthrop.

@Gugel William Hanson is quite repellent enough to be an actual character in Keeping Up Appearances.

That's a little harsh.

Though also weirdly compelling. He's like one of those prematurely aged ten year olds who show up in a giant blazer and bowtie discussing Socrates on 1980s documentaries about gifted children.

That's hilarious 😅😂😁

@IClaudine I listened to some of A Woman Of No Importance today, while I was working (I'm a domestic cleaner with headphones).

I was very wrong, in that the line I referred to (which was "I don't know how we managed before you came, Miss Schofield - I honestly don't!") was not about the newspapers, rather it was said in relation to Peggy telling Nurse Gillies that Mrs Maudsley was saying she'd still not had her toe nails cut.

Anyway, in the style of Alan Bennett, I got to the part where Peggy was about to be taken to surgery but then I tuned out - I wasn't sure if I could face listening to any more of it, as it all takes a turn to the negative soon after, and what with me feeling somewhat upbeat mood-wise on this particular afternoon, I didn't want to spoil it...anyway, it was a quarter-to by then, and'd I'd not even finished the kitchen, let alone started the bedrooms, so I had another cup of decaf and set-to with the Jif.