Oh, the agony and the ecstasy of being Hyacinth Bucket, the “Mrs Bouquet” of the 1990s sitcom Keeping Up Appearances; the agony of those turbulent urges she experiences around the upper classes, which can only ever end badly. But then there’s the triumph of order and gentility that is the “Bouquet residence”, a miniature stately in a Midlands bungalow. Hyacinth is aspirational, but she’s unfairly mocked.
In the current BBC1 prequel, Young Hyacinth, they’ve rewritten history to suggest Hyacinth had worked as a maid for the gentry (it’s a hugely disputed version of events!), learning about antiques and the right words for meals. Wanting to better herself. And, because she’s a young woman in the mid-1950s, all her ambitions are focused on getting a nice