Keeping Up Appearances: The Full Bouquet
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DVD details
Actor: Clive SwiftBrand: WHV
Performer: Judy Cornwell
Performer: Patricia Routledge
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Stereo; English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Stereo
Format: Box set, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Special Edition, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 1340 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-09-09
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: BBC Worldwide
Product features:
- Condition: New
- Format: DVD
- Box set; Color; DVD; Special Edition; Subtitled; Full Screen; NTSC
DVD Reviews of Keeping Up Appearances: The Full Bouquet
DVD Review: "The Bucket residence, the lady of the house speaking!"
Summary: 4 Stars
Why is it that the best British sitcoms have incredibly annoying lead characters?
First there was John Cleese as a mad hotelier, and Rowan Atkinson as the entire offensively sarcastic Blackadder dynasty. Now, there is Patricia Routledge as a social-climber with affected manners and a piercing voice. And with the aid of talented supporting actors and some gloriously madcap scripts, this sitcom becomes almost pure comic bliss.
Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced "Bouquet," ss) is the local social climber, and a terror to all who know her -- she views herself as the doyenne of good taste, artistry, morals, decorum, and class, and her perpetually-in-debt son Sheridan as being the next Einstein.
She kisses up to the wealthy and aristocratic, and anyone who is closely associated with them, unaware of how much her self-promotion scares them and occasionally offends. Her weary husband Richard (Clive Swift) and nervy neighbor Elizabeth (Josephine Tewson) dread whatever she has next, especially when Elizabeth's sharp-tongued brother Emmett moves in.
She adores her sister Violet, who married a wealthy, unfaithful transvestite and has "a swimming pool, Mercedes, and room for a pony." But she'll do anything to hide her impoverished family members: her wacked-out father, sloppy romantic Daisy (Judy Cornwell) and skanky Rose (Mary Millar), who has a new boyfriend for every episode. Not to mention Daisy's couch potato hubby Onslow (Geoffrey Hughes).
The series opens with Hyacinth trying to hide the fact that "dear Daddy" was hurt while bicycling naked after the milk lady. And when she makes an effort to befriend the handsome new vicar (the "dishy vicar" as Rose calls him), her family shows up in full crazy mode, announcing that dear Daddy has been kidnapped by a gypsy.
From there on, she must tackle dozens of other problems: athlete's foot, mad cruises on the QE2 (with Onslow and Daisy), inadvertent theft of a Rolls Royce, riverside picnics gone awry, suicide attempts, estate sales, country retreats, anniversaries, nautical disasters, musicals, barbecues, raunchy Majors, Richard's ill-fated stint as a filmmaker, Christmas kisses, and Rose's decision to become a nun in a miniskirt. "It's all right," she announces as she drunkenly smooches the vicar. "I'm going to be a nun!"
This one also includes the later-produced "Life Lessons From Onslow," a funny little clip show in which Onslow finds himself teaching a university course, illustrated by various clips from the series. God help those students.
"Keeping Up Appearances" is in the grand tradition of really embarrassing British sitcoms, usually with at least one person who makes everyone else insane. And there's no excessive need to get Hyacinth out of her various dilemmas -- the writers just crank up the humiliation and craziness, and let it climax as the show finally ends.
Sure, there are some dud episodes -- the amusement park one with all the old people is full of one-note jokes. Sorry, but old ladies throwing up is not funny more than once. Most of the time, however, the writing is spot-on, from Rose's affairs with married men ("You swore you'd be faithful... and then... I catch you sneaking back to your wife!") to Hyacinth's efforts to hide her family (singing so people won't hear Violet's brawl with her husband).
Routledge is the star of this series, no doubt about it -- she makes Hyacinth a magnificently awful character. She is frighteningly annoying, but she's also completely oblivious. Not only is she unaware that other people see her as an upholstered harpy, but she's unaware that her son is gay, her hubby is the walking dead, and that when people hide from her it's not a cute little joke.
Swift is a great counterpoint, as the weary husband who has stopping trying to fight Hyacinth, and only hopes that he can find a few reprieves at work. Tewson and the perpetually grimacing David Griffin are excellent as her neighbors, and Judy Cornwell and Geoffrey Hughes as Hyacinth's distinctly unaristocratic sister and brother-in-law.
Social appearances, family and madcap misunderstandings are the heart of "Keeping Up Appearances." Snobbery has never been so funny.
Description of Keeping Up Appearances: The Full Bouquet
Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced "bouquet") goes to incredible lengths in her quest for perfection. Hers is a spick-and-span house. Her downtrodden husband, Richard, acts as chauffeur in their immaculately kept car. Their permanently absent son has a superior name, Sheridan. Even the empty milk bottles sparkle on the doorstep after their obligatory rinse in the dishwasher. Hyacinth delights in her "candlelit suppers", but her guests live in fear of receiving her invitations. Next-door neighbor Liz is so nervous that she is guaranteed to break or spill something. Her brother Emmet hides every time he sees Hyacinth. And the Buckets' distinguished friend, the Major, and the vicar and his wife all do their best to keep out of her way. In marked contrast to Hyacinth's meticulously ordered life, however, the rest of her family are as common as muck. They live together in a rundown house that looks like a junkyard. Sister Daisy and her husband, Onslow, are out-and-out slobs. Her other sister, Rose, is an aging tart. And her elderly father is a lecherous drunk, given to cycling stark-naked down by the canal, chasing the milkwoman. Whatever Hyacinth does, her family can always be guaranteed to show her up. Can she ever live down the disgrace?Bestsellers in DVD
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