The perfect comic foil for sitcom
Josephine Tewson Comedy actress BORN FEBRUARY 26, 1931 – DIED AUGUST 18, 2022, AGED 91
AGIFTED actress with superb comic timing, Josephine Tewson played the put-upon friend of Hyacinth Bucket, or “Bouquet”, in Keeping Up Appearances, which helped attract audiences of 13 million at its peak.
Her depiction of Liz Warden, neighbour of Hyacinth, played by Patricia Routledge, was one of the best relationships of the series.
Bucket’s snobbish aspirations for climbing the social ladder were brought down to earth by the sage observations of Liz, even though they were mostly ignored and she was left fretting uneasily, scared to spill a drop of tea or break a biscuit for fear of breaching Hyacinth’s maniacal tidiness.
Going around for a cup of coffee became a trial, as Hyacinth scored hollow victories in the over-inflated suburban melodramas.
“The trick was trying to think of a different way to spill coffee every week,” she told one interviewer.
Born in Hampstead, London, her father William Tewson played double bass in the BBC Symphony Orchestra and her mother Kate was a nurse. “I was terribly shy as a child, most actors are,” she said once. “But when we get behind a character, the shyness goes.”
After grammar school, Tewson studied acting at Rada and launched her career in rep at Darlington, and by 1957 had appeared with Leonard Rossiter in the musical Free As Air at the Savoy Theatre.
The pair married in 1958 but divorced three years later.
She found television fame on The Charlie Drake Show, where she perfected her talent for playing the foil for comedians. Tewson was so good at her craft many comics were eager to work with her, including Dick Emery, Jimmy Tarbuck, Bernie Winters and Larry Grayson.
She shone in the sitcom Son Of The Bride with Terry Scott in 1973 and four years later with Roy Kinnear in No Appointment Necessary. For 10 years she was a regular in The Two Ronnies and earned the respect of Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker as she helped make their sketches work.
Tewson appeared in 50 shows with them and became a close friend of Barker. In his final sitcom for the BBC, Clarence, he wrote a female lead just for her. Clarence became infatuated with her character and pursued her relentlessly.
“If you’re Julia Roberts or Dame Judi Dench you expect people to write parts for you but not little old me,” Tewson said.
She married second husband, dentist Henry Newman, in 1972, they never had children.