It’s opening night of the BBC Showcase in Liverpool, the annual gathering of hundreds of international television buyers here for the opportunity to screen upcoming BBC programming to bring back to their respective countries. This year didn’t open with a laundry list rundown of programs and series ‘in the pipeline’ for people to screen over the […]
Read more
Is there no end to the brilliant comedy news coming out the UK? Already this week, in conjunction with their Landmark Sitcom Season which will celebrate 60 years of British Comedy on the Beeb in 2016, came the announcement concerning 21st century remakes of several classic British comedies including Porridge, Up Pompeii, Are You Being Served?, Good […]
Read more
Armed with her early theatre training background from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Patricia Routledge launched her career at the Liverpool Playhouse. She spent years, professionally, on stage and in theatre (which included a 1968 ‘Best Actress in a Musical’ Tony Award for her performance in Darling of the Day) in addition to several big screen appearances including To Sir, With […]
Read more
Hyacinth Bucket, played brilliantly by Patricia Routledge, has spent a lifetime in our collective homes over the years insisting her surname is pronounced Bouquet. She is pretty much a pompous social-climbing snob. Unbeknownst to most neighbor residents of Blossom Lane, Hyacinth originally came from a very poor working-class background. Her main mission in life is […]
Read more
As if the Crawleys don’t already have enough to worry about having to deal with the untimely death of Matthew at the end series 3, now it seems that when Violet Crawley and Lord Grantham sit down to dine at Downton, their table isn’t set correctly, as the Radio Times‘ Ellie Walker-Arnott found out recently. […]
Read more
Even the most casual Keeping Up Appearances fan of the woman who makes no bones about having a sister whose house has a swimming pool, sauna, and room for a pony, will no doubt ever forget her singing prowess designed to impress next door neighbor, Emmet Hawkesworth. To this day, I’ll never forget interviewing Ms. […]
Read more
As the great Patricia Routledge inches closer to her 83rd birthday on Friday, 17 February, I’m reminded of a point in time in the late 1990’s that we had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to interview Ms. Routledge for a salute to British comedy program for broadcast on public television in the States. For weeks before the […]
Read more
With lots of new British series coming to the U.S. via public television in early 2011, I decided to mention one that I’ve tracked for awhile and really can’t wait for. Partly because it’s a brilliant series, but mainly because of a far-fetched article that surfaced yesterday about the BBC hit series, Outnumbered, alluding to […]
Read more
For a British comedy series that ran for just five seasons from 1990-1995, Keeping Up Appearances has a continuous stretch of worldwide syndication along with a newly created stage performance to thank for its longevity. If you’re in the neighborhood, the Comedy Theatre Company has taken one of Britain’s most popular comedies of all-time and moves it […]
Read more
Several years ago, we were extremely fortunate to have interviewed Patricia Routledge as part of The Funny Ladies of British Comedy program for PBS. Having never met, needless to say, we were probably so over prepared for the interview given that our obvious frame of reference was her portrayal of the character of Hyacinth Bucket […]
Read more