Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
THE MAKING OF A MONSTROUS SNOB
No wonder Kerry Howard jumped at the chance when she was offered the part of the young Hyacinth Bucket – she was one of the actress’s childhood heroines. ‘I was brought up on Keeping Up Appearances. We watched it as a family and I would do impressions of Hyacinth for my mum,’ says Kerry.
But she soon realised the role came with a huge responsibility. The original show with Patricia Routledge as the snobbish suburban housewife ran for five series from 1990 to 1995, and has since become the BBC’s most exported TV show. This one-off episode for the BBC’s special season, called Young Hyacinth, was written by the show’s creator Roy Clarke and imagines what she was like as a young woman in the 1950s. ‘Roy’s basically written a love letter to Hyacinth that explains why she became this monster of a snob,’ says Kerry. ‘Hyacinth’s one of four sisters living in a threadbare one-bedroom house. Their mum’s run off with an American and their drunk dad, played by the wonderful Mark Addy, spends his time lying on the sofa. Hyacinth’s a maid for a posh family so that’s where her airs and graces come from, as well as her dream of owning her own china!’
The voice brought its problems. ‘I had to realise that she’s 24 and not 50, so I had to bring down the voice, make it younger, a little bit Northern,’ says Kerry. ‘They cut my hair short, dyed it brown and I had curls set every day. We modelled her on the young Queen Elizabeth because she would have been Hyacinth’s icon. She’s also a physical clown so I had to get her twitches and blinking right. There’s a classic scene with her hoovering all over the place after her boss has given her a liqueur; it’s a great bit of old-school Hyacinth slapstick.’ Although this is a one-off, there are no resolutions so there’s the potential for more episodes. ‘It’s proper tea-time comedy,’ says Kerry. ‘I’d love to do more.’
Young Hyacinth, Friday, 9.30pm, BBC1.