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Young Hyacinth, with Kerry Howard in the lead role as Mrs Bucket-to-be, is a cleaner, who we see working for the ever-at-odds couple Dulcie (Debra Stephenson) and Claude (Tony Gardner), with him oddly calling his wife a “bitch”, when this is the kind of programme that would normally air in a pre-watershed slot had it not been for being part of the BBC’s Landmark Sitcoms Season.
Daddy – a seller of cleaning products and a drunk – is Mark Addy (The Full Monty, Game of Thrones, and everything else), and she’s joined by interchangeable sisters Daisy (Katherine Pearce), Violet (Tamla Kari) and Rose (Katie Redford) – they’all named after flowers, you see.
Back in the day, I couldn’t understand Keeping Up Appearances at all, as it seemed way too over the top, but then around the age of 20 it probably wasn’t for my age group. However, repeats a further twenty years later helped me to ‘get it’ and I was laughing like a drain (same goes for One Foot In The Grave, although I *got* that in my late 20s, when I was already turning into an old bastard). However, Young Hyacinth is like a gentle comedy drama that just meanders along, spending too long giving us a depiction of the late ’50s, without including a storyline or anything in the way of jokes.
Ms Howard does a good job of impersonating Hyacinth – while toning it down slightly, since she’s younger, but it’s still a very slow half-hour without really going anywhere.
It’s just a shame there was no husband for her to shout “Richard!!!”, as I think she would’ve delivered that rather well.
On the plus side, at least there’s no canned laughter in this.
Young Hyacinth airs on BBC1 on Friday, September 2nd at 9.30pm, but is not yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. After broadcast, if you missed it, you can watch the episode on BBC iPlayer, up until October 2nd, and click on the top image in this review for the full-size version.
Score: 2/10
Director: Sandy Johnson
Producer: Sarah Hitchcock
Writer: Roy Clarke
Music: Theo Vidgen
Cast:
Hyacinth: Kerry Howard
Dulcie: Debra Stephenson
Claude: Tony Gardner
Daddy: Mark Addy
Daisy: Katherine Pearce
Rose: Katie Redford
Violet: Tamla Kari
Eric: Thomas Pickles
Freddie: Tim Downie
William: Jason Wrighton
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.