Writers and Directors: Jack Robertson and Anton Tweedale.
For a while in the mid 1990’s, the sitcom Keeping Up Appearances was the BBC’s best-selling international export, outperforming even Dr Who and Top Gear. Petty suburban obsessions with social status, etiquette, and the perils of trying a little too hard to be something one manifestly is not apparently have cross-cultural appeal. Writers and performers Jack Robertson and Anton Tweedale reincarnate the show’s social-climbing protagonist, Hyacinth Bucket – pronounced Bouquet – in the form of a flesh-eating zombie unleashed to wreak havoc upon the lives of her artistically inclined son Sheridan’s bête noires.
There are some decent jokes in Digging Up Appearances, and Robertson’s grotesque take on Hyacinth manages to capture some of the character’s intense vulnerability. But you may conclude that enjoyment here is directly proportional to familiarity with the original TV series. Gen Zedders might find themselves scratching their heads in befuddled amusement, and one cannot help feeling that Hyacinth should remain a spectacle to be observed rather than, as the writers seem to propose, a problem to be solved.
Gloomy, mid-forties, golf club receptionist Sheridan Shovel-Bucket (pronounced Shouvelle-Bouquet and played by Tweedale) sits in his “bijou studio apartment for one”, leafing through Tatler, mourning the absence of his former husband Andy, who has left him for “an arts dealer with a penchant for him wrecking”. As he frantically grasps an amulet “bought from ‘Accessorize’”, he conjures into life the long-dead form of his mother, Hyacinth. “Do you need mummy, Sheridan?” she asks. Given that Andy has left Sheridan precisely because “you’ve turned into your mother”, one cannot help feeling the answer is no. No wonder hospital psychiatrist Dr Fetherby sits in the corner of the room making notes.
Naturally, Sheridan, who enjoys “comforting myself with Debussy” (Patricia Routledge’s Hyacinth surely never emitted quite such a cascade of fruity double-entendres), brings out the Royal Doulton with hand-painted periwinkles and makes coffee. Meanwhile, Mummy, an avenging angel in zombie form, is projectile-vomiting black bile onto the floor, which suggests the journey from the afterlife has been as bumpy as a mismatched candlelight supper. What passes for narrative sees Hyacinth eat anyone who crosses the duo’s path, a fair number in a show whose runtime barely meets that of a Keeping Up Appearances Christmas special.
Robertson and Tweedale seem to want to reconcile mother and son, with Sheridan finally coming out to Hyacinth as gay. It feels like an unnecessary tying up of plot strands that the show’s original writer sensibly left open, one of several. There are nods to Hamlet (Hyacinth’s long-suffering husband Richard appears in skull form) and Psycho to enjoy, but ultimately, you may feel your time would be better spent watching the original on Sheridan’s subscription to Britbox.
Runs until 7 February 2026
