Set in the late 1950s, a young Hyacinth will be seen desperately trying to force her family to climb the social ladder.Set in the late 1950s, a young Hyacinth will be seen desperately trying to force her family to climb the social ladder.Set in the late 1950s, a young Hyacinth will be seen desperately trying to force her family to climb the social ladder.
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- TriviaIn this 2016 standalone prequel episode "Young Hyacinth", which may have intended to have been a back-door pilot leading to a prequel series, we learn more about the origins of Hyacinth's mindset. The family surname is finally revealed to be the Waltons. According to this episode, in the early 1950s, young Hyacinth Walton is working as a domestic servant for the Cooper-Smiths by day while living in a small canal cottage with her alcoholic father ("Daddy") and her three sisters (Violet, Rose and Daisy). Impressed by her eccentric employers, Hyacinth vows to escape her poor background and enter a world of the elegant upper class, thus leading to her ongoing behaviour seen in Keeping up Appearances, of "trying to climb the social (classes) ladder". Presumably, if the episode had become a series, it would finally have officially revealed just exactly how and why Richard and Hyacinth met and eventually got married, which continues to cause much debate and theories, even amongst the casual viewer.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Keeping Up Appearances: 30 Years of Laughs (2023)
Featured review
Mildly Amusing Prequel to the "Bucket Woman's" Later Life
Where did the celebrated character Hyacinth Bucket come from? Set in a never-never land of the Fifties and early Sixties, Roy Clarke offered an imaginative speculation.
She grew up in a modest lakeside cottage, surrounded by her three sisters Violet (Tamla Karl), Daisy (Katharine Pearce), and Rose (Katie Redford). All three of them displayed the social foibles that would blight their later lives: Violet was a social climber, Daisy fond of wearing gents' overalls; and Rose promiscuous. All three of them were feckless, leaving Hyacinth (Kerry Howard) with the onerous duties of holding down a full-time job, keeping house, and looking after Daddy (Mark Addy). We had to admire Hyancinth's indomitable spirit - despite the numerous handicaps blighting her life, she took great pleasure in her work as a housemaid to the bourgeois Cooper-Smith family, even though their social graces were infinitely inferior to her own.
Sandy Johnson's production suggested that Hyancinth was a throwback to an earlier time when 'U' and 'Non-U' gradations of behavior really mattered, especially among the upwardly mobile social climbers. The fact that her family were only interested in material things was irrelevant; the fact that she could look forward to a future life of wedded bourgeois bliss with a respectable spouse (though not her present beau William (James Wrighton)) was sufficient for her.
Kerry Howard was particularly convincing in the lead role; she caught the character's flat northern vowels interspersed with the desperate desire to retain her Received Pronunciation training. She had one especially funny sequence in the Cooper-Smith's household, as she tried to do the vacuuming while under the influence of liqueur. At that point Spencer's body assumed something of the magnificent elasticity of Patricia Routledge's in the original series.
A gentle episode, to be sure, providing evidence of Clarke's essential generosity towards his characters, despite their excesses. But nonetheless THE YOUNG HYACINTH has potential, should the BBC wish to develop it into series form.
She grew up in a modest lakeside cottage, surrounded by her three sisters Violet (Tamla Karl), Daisy (Katharine Pearce), and Rose (Katie Redford). All three of them displayed the social foibles that would blight their later lives: Violet was a social climber, Daisy fond of wearing gents' overalls; and Rose promiscuous. All three of them were feckless, leaving Hyacinth (Kerry Howard) with the onerous duties of holding down a full-time job, keeping house, and looking after Daddy (Mark Addy). We had to admire Hyancinth's indomitable spirit - despite the numerous handicaps blighting her life, she took great pleasure in her work as a housemaid to the bourgeois Cooper-Smith family, even though their social graces were infinitely inferior to her own.
Sandy Johnson's production suggested that Hyancinth was a throwback to an earlier time when 'U' and 'Non-U' gradations of behavior really mattered, especially among the upwardly mobile social climbers. The fact that her family were only interested in material things was irrelevant; the fact that she could look forward to a future life of wedded bourgeois bliss with a respectable spouse (though not her present beau William (James Wrighton)) was sufficient for her.
Kerry Howard was particularly convincing in the lead role; she caught the character's flat northern vowels interspersed with the desperate desire to retain her Received Pronunciation training. She had one especially funny sequence in the Cooper-Smith's household, as she tried to do the vacuuming while under the influence of liqueur. At that point Spencer's body assumed something of the magnificent elasticity of Patricia Routledge's in the original series.
A gentle episode, to be sure, providing evidence of Clarke's essential generosity towards his characters, despite their excesses. But nonetheless THE YOUNG HYACINTH has potential, should the BBC wish to develop it into series form.
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- l_rawjalaurence
- Sep 5, 2016
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- Runtime28 minutes
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