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Hyacinth script as fresh as a rose...
Keeping Up Appearances Blackpool Grand Theatre
YOU could have almost put money on Hyacinth Bucket's (pronounced Bouquet) mobile telephone having The Sound of Music as its ringtone.
Comedy writer Roy Clarke - who also created Open All Hours and has been penning Last of the Summer Wine since 1973 – created one of the most memorable tv sitcom characters when the social climbing, thick skinned figurehead of a socially dysfunctional family took to the screens from 1990 to 1995.
It was always a love it or hate it series – a sort of middle class Shameless with sisters randy Rose and bulky Daisy, slobbish brother-in-law Onslow, nervous neighbour Elizabeth and her musical brother Emmet.
In this written for the stage updating Onslow (played by comedian Gareth Hale) still does for string vests and one line insults what only Rab C Nesbit has equalled, whilst Emmet (Steven Pinder) is now turning his attentions to amateur drama and his attempts to rally the troops for a village play form the basis of the action.
Plays within plays always test acting merits – especially when taking a Noises Off approach of asking professionals to portray amateurs.
Most of the time the cast make a decent job of it.-
Rachel Bell doing a remarkably good job as the infuriatingly annoying Hyacinth and clearly realising it's pointless trying to attempt anything other than a carbon copy of Patricia Routledge's tour de force, with just an occasional dash of Dame Edna.
Casting herself into Emmet's play creates, in her words "one of those days when your souffl won't rise."
Be that as it may, the script still feels as fresh. Most of us still know a Hyacinth though it's really a Rose we want to meet.
Robin Duke
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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