Keeping Up Appearances
Keeping Up Appearances
7.999%
A snobbish housewife is determined to climb the social ladder, in spite of her family's working class connections and the constant chagrin of her long suffering husband.
匚卂尺ㄥ reviewedJanuary 31, 2025
I used to watch this on Sunday afternoons with my mum, we used to sit and laugh out loud at Hyacinth and her permanently stunned and bewildered circle of friends and family. Dear Emmet, he's very fond of her you know. The writing and acting is so good, every character is loveable regardless of their flaws. The 'keeping up appearances' seems to work on two levels. On the one hand, Hyacinth struggles to maintain social standing, and on the other, those around her don't seem to have the heart to burst her bubble. Hyacinth may be a snob, but she's no monster. She's kind-hearted and, despite the veneer of social status, there's a genuiness about her; she might like to pretend to Lydia Hawksworth that she owns a Rolls-Royce, but she'd never deliberately or maliciously tell a lie. Long-suffering Richard is her perfect foil and you really feel for him. Early retirement? Poor devil. Layabout Onslow, sex-starved Daisy and maneating Rose are equally loveable and believable. Poor Elizabeth lives in terror of coffee at eleven, and Emmet of being sung at. What makes it funny is that it finds its seam of humour in that peculiarly British trait of being too polite to say anything in the myriad awkward situations that arise. It looks at human flaws and frailties with warmth and compassion, never judging or criticising, just gently nudging and acknowledging them. Hard to believe it's almost thirty years since this show began. I still laugh out loud at it, decades later.