In today’s overloaded commercial environment, no one gives it a second thought when they encounter celebrity spokespeople appearing in adverts for their favorite whatever. What doesn’t immediately come to mind are commercials that feature the character that an actor portrays. The only recent example that seems to follow this concept features the perfect pitchman, Modern Family‘s Phil Dunphy, […]
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If nothing else, Young Hyacinth, the forthcoming BBC prequel to the classic Roy Clarke series, Keeping Up Appearances, will give audiences a bit of insight as to how a 19-year-old Hyacinth from humble beginnings turned into an over-bearing, social-climbing snob with a penchant for slimline telephones with automatic redial, Royal Doulton china with hand-painted periwinkles, candlelight suppers. In […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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Unlike American television where broadcast networks have made a living for years producing full-length programs that have centered around bloopers filmed during the actual episode recording, program bloopers for a majority of British telly, be it comedy or drama, have always been few and far between. Having had the great good fortune over the years […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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. […]
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At 82, Patricia Routledge, the star of Keeping Up Appearances and Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, has not slowed one bit. Following up her 1995 series-ending role as Hyacinth, then moving on to play the crime-solving Hetty Wainthropp, Ms. Routledge continued a long, storied career in both film and musical theatre, including her most recent role as […]
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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 […]
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