There were times when you felt that Patricia Routledge, the popular and formidable actor, who has died aged 96, embodied the true voice of middle England with its smug self-confidence, disapproval of moral weakness in others and unshakeable sense of snobbish superiority.
Such character traits were, of course, translated into glorious comic flaws in her best-known role, Hyacinth Bucket (“pronounced Bouquet”), in the BBC television series Keeping Up Appearances (1990-95), written by Roy Clarke, in which Hyacinth’s social-climbing aspirations were punctured by her own absurd over-reaching and the impingement of grim reality, in the shape of an embarrassing sister and her slob of a husband living on a council estate situated too close for comfort. Hyacinth was a variation on the traditional stage battleaxe, with oddly sympathetic undertones, as when Routledge, riffling the net curtains, would cut across the horror of a new man staying next door with an aghast cry of, “We’ll have to move!” Clive Swift as her supine husband would grin and bear it and even suggest a delighted astonishment at her outbursts.
