Cheap Keeping Up Appearances - Hyacinth Springs Eternal Set (Vol. 5-8) (DVD) (Judy Cornwell) Price

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Customer Reviews of Keeping Up Appearances - Hyacinth Springs Eternal Set (Vol. 5-8)

"The 'Bouquet' residence! The lady of the house speaking!"
"Keeping Up Appearances" was a 44-episode, British TV sitcom that ran for five seasons between 1990 and 1995, with several specials filmed through 1997. The show's primary character was Hyancinth Bucket (Patricia Routledge), who always pronounced her last name as 'Bouquet' to make it sound as impressive as possible. She was obsessed with making her family appear as affluent and upper class as possible, which involved keeping her home immaculately clean and bragging to everyone about any new acquisition. While Hyancinth believes that she is admired and well respected by her piers, the reality is that no one wants anything to do with her. Her husband, Richard Bucket (Clive Swift), does not share Hyacinth's obsession, but he accommodates her as best as he can. Unfortunately for Hyacinth, her various plans to improve their station in life are often sidetracked by issues from her less affluent sisters or her senile father. The people that are most intimidated by Hyacinth are her next-door neighbor Elizabeth Hawksworth Warden (Josephine Tewson) and her brother Emmet Hawksworth (David Griffin, who appeared in the second season onward). The local church vicar, Michael (Jeremy Gittins), and his wife (played by Marion Barron) also try to avoid Hyacinth as much as possible.

Hyacinth's three sisters live to varying degrees of affluence. Daisy (Judy Cornwell) and her blue-collar husband Onslow (Geoffrey Hughes) live in a row house that is in dire need of repair, with a wrecked car parked out front and an unkempt interior. Hyancinth's unmarried sister Rose (played by Shirley Stelfox in 1990 and Mary Millar between 1991 and 1995) lives with Daisy and Onslow and enjoys spending time with many men to the chagrin of Hyancinth. Hyancinth's only affluent sister, Violet (Anna Dawson), is rarely seen, but Hyacinth often speaks with her on the telephone. However, Violet's husband Bruce (John Evitts), who is also rarely seen, often has a penchant for wearing women's clothes to Hyacinth's embarrassment. Their senile father (George Webb) lives with Daisy and Onslow, and has a tendency to run away and get himself into all sorts of trouble.

This 4-DVD set includes the following:
* Volume #5, entitled "Everything's Coming Up Hyacinth", includes all seven episodes from the third season.
* Volume #6, entitled "Some Like it Hyacinth", includes all seven episodes from the fourth season.
* Volume #7, entitled "Living the Hyacinth Life", includes the first six episodes of the fifth season and interviews with Patricia Rutledge and Clive Swift.
* Volume #8, entitled "Hats Off to Hyacinth", includes the last four episodes of the fifth season and the 1997 special "The Memoirs of Hyancinth Bucket".

Though "Keeping Up Appearances" is not as well known in the U.S. as "Absolutely Fabulous" (nor is it as outrageous), it is a very good example of British comedy. Overall, I rank this 4-DVD set with a rating of 5 out of 5 stars.

The Grand Dame of Self-Delusion Rides Again
"I'm Often Mistaken for Aristocracy." This episode title sums up the problem of Hyacinth's life. Through some ironic twist of fate, she was born to the wrong set and must bend all her efforts to correcting the error.

Her ever-suffering husband Richard is cashiered into early retirement from his job as a minor local bureaucrat. But in Hyacinth's delusional world, his invitation to the Queen's annual garden party for retiring senior government officials has gone inexplicably missing, and she sets out to track it down.

She is an undiscovered chanteuse who is finally accorded her long-overdue chance when a minor local musical director moves in next door. The facts that her singing can knock cats off garbage cans and that her neighbor lives in virtual hiding to avoid her are completely lost on Hyacinth, who simply cannot abide the injustice of depriving the world -- or at least her church socials -- of the joys of her caterwauling.

She may not be able to afford the "right" trips, but she can certainly see to it that she is seen picking up the right brochures. And she was born to host elegant candlelight dinners on her Royal Doulton china with blue periwinkles. The fact that no one ever accepts the invitations is no reason to cease going on about them endlessly.

And her sisters and brother-in-law! In this assemblage of some of the screen's most loveable louts one comes face to face with the ultimate futility of Hyancinth's quest to rise above it all. It's pure physics. No one could ever escape this much gravity.

This is comedy in the disturbing vein of Carol Burnett's notoriously dysfunctional "Mama's Family". And, like the Harper family's, Hyacinth's hijinks are hilarious . . . not just because they are full of comedic pratfalls, characters you almost know in your own life, and the astonishing abandon of the actors playing the roles -- but because they take you right to the edge of an insane mind kept on kilter only by skipping from one cognitive disconnect to another, like jumping stones over a raging river. One misstep, and Hyacinth would end up in the asylum where she belongs.