Keeping Up Appearances

For any society to take on a play which has been a TV classic, and especially one such as this which is so well known, they have to ensure they have actors who can portray the various well-known characters.

Tudor Players certainly had the right actors in abundance who were more than capable of portraying the various characters for this well-known show.

This TV classic was on our screens from 1990 to 1995, it was so successful that by 2016 it had been sold nearly one thousand times to overseas broadcasters.

The scene opens with Emmet, the brother of Hyacinth’s neighbour, Liz, he is in the village hall getting ready for their forthcoming play, Emmet was played to the full by Ross Bannister, who managed to get every single piece of character out of the script.

Emmet was trying to cast the play when a woman from The Art Class, played by Rachel Jex, enters the stage to tell him the hall is double booked, she is followed by his sister, Liz played by Judith Wade who was excellent, of course as we all know as soon as anyone mentions “The Bucket Woman” Emmet loses all his sense of reasoning and ends up a quivering wreck.

As the scene unfolds, we see Daisy and Onslow, Hyacinth’s sister and brother-in-law, played by Andrea Howard and John Fereday, enter the hall. Both Andrea and John managed to capture all the nuances of their respective characters much to the delight of the audience.

Next, we see a rather nervous looking gentleman enter called Milly, Justin Harrison was able to portray Milly with ease, he had just gone through a very bad divorce and was quite nervous at doing anything “out of the ordinary”, however it had been suggested he tried his hand at acting. It would appear, however, that Milly has heard about the woman called “Bucket” which causes his nerves to play up.

All the characters leave the stage and we see the door smash open to reveal Hyacinth Bucket, pronounce Bouquet enter the hall fully expecting a room full of people awaiting her entrance, unfortunately it is empty.

Edwina Gascoyne was every bit Hyacinth, she must have studied Patricia Routledge for hours as she had every single mannerism and foible to give this part the justice it so deserves, she was outstanding.

As the action moves on it appears Hyacinth had attended the hall for the Art Class, however once she finds out one of the main characters has yet to be cast, she immediately puts her name forward, especially as she is a titled lady.

Hyacinth has quite a good number of scenes where she is talking to either the Vicar, her husband, Richard or other people who are behind the fourth wall and Edwina really excelled in these scenes, imagining the other people providing a one-sided conversation.

The penultimate member of Hyacinths family to appear is Rose, her sister who is always after the men and almost wears her clothes, Fran Rocker was another actor who was superb and once she met Milly and found out he was single her claws were out.

Hyacinth finds out one of the judges from the art class is going to visit the hall, a Mrs Debden played by Jan Ibberson. In the play Hyacinth is to play two parts, one being the titled lady, the other being the cook. Of course, when Mrs Debden enters Hyacinth is dressed as the cook which is far from being flattering. The scene which follows with Hyacinth giving a West-Country accent whilst trying to hide her face is hilarious.

The final member of Hyacinth’s family is Daddy, played by Charles Ibberson, of course he enters complete with gas mask and shorts and is up to his usual antics which makes for another hilarious scene.

The whole play is hilarious from start to finish and Phil Gascoyne must be extremely pleased with the end result.

Congratulations to everyone involved in this superb production.

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