TV review by Steve Bennett

None of the comedies being revisited for the BBC’s Landmark Sitcom really work without knowing the context in which the show is being revived – but Young Hyacinth is especially dependent on the audience realising that this character grows up to be the formidable Mrs Bucket of Keeping Up Appearances.

We meet her as a maid for a well-to-do couple, picking up high-falutin vocabulary like ‘debauched’ without really understanding what it means and fostering a jealousy of the upper-classes that would inform her future snobbiness. ‘You have to admire the way the better classes fall apart without dropping an H,’ she notes after witnessing another row. It doesn’t mean much unless you project forward to 1990s suburbia.

The ‘above stairs’ life is in contrast to the 19-year-old Hyacinth’s existence in cramped cottage where she has to share a bed with her similarly floral-named sisters Violet, Daisy and Rose,while courting William (James Wrighton) .

By moving back to the 1950s, we’re in territory creator Roy Clarke knows best, having already  exploited period nostalgia in Last of the Summer Wine and Open All Hours.  Evocatively shot and soundtracked, Young Hyacinth taps into the same feelings, although the show rather pootles along, rarely finding strong laughs. In the original, Hyacinth’s pretensions against ordinary suburban life provided the comic engine, here she just fits into the normal social order.

Kerry Howard, no stranger to creating sitcom grotesques of her own, courtesy of Him and Her bridezilla Laura, is convincing as a younger version of the Hyacinth we know… you genuinely believe she could grow up into Patricia Routledge’s creation. So this pilot episode will certainly do her rising star no harm, even if it doesn’t feel like the start of an exciting new series.

Routledge herself has been scathing about the project, saying: ‘Why are they doing this sort of thing? They must be desperate.’ Though with Keeping Up Appearances being the BBC’s top export, you can understand the ‘why’ very easily, even if there’s unlikely to be little clamour for this prequel.

Review date: 2 Sep 2016
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett