Keeping Up Appearances

Keeping Up Appearances
Genre	Sitcom
Created by	Roy Clarke
Written by	Roy Clarke
Directed by	Harold Snoad
Starring	Patricia Routledge Clive Swift Josephine Tewson Geoffrey Hughes Judy Cornwell Shirley Stelfox Mary Millar David Griffin
Theme music composer	Nick Ingman
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language	English
No. of series	5
No. of episodes	44 (including 4 specials) (list of episodes)
Production
Producer	Harold Snoad
Production locations	BBC Television Centre Binley Woods, Warwickshire, England; (Hyacinth's Home) Stoke Aldermoor, Coventry, West Midlands, England; (Daisy and Onslow's Council Estate House) Leamington Spa, England (Towns and various locations) Northampton, England; (Church, Church Hall and Vicarage) Swindon, Wiltshire, England; Oxford, England; Bristol, England; Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England; Copenhagen, Denmark; (location scenes)
Editor	Andy Quested
Camera setup	Single-camera Multi-Camera
Running time	30 minutes 50 minutes (1994 Christmas special) 60 minutes (1993 Christmas special)
Production company	BBC
Original release
Network	BBC1
Release	29 October 1990 (1990-10-29) – 25 December 1995 (1995-12-25)
Related
Young Hyacinth
Infobox instructions (only shown in preview)

Keeping Up Appearances is a British sitcom created and written by Roy Clarke. It originally aired on BBC1 from 1990 to 1995. The central character is an eccentric and snobbish middle-class social climber, Hyacinth Bucket (Patricia Routledge), who insists that her surname is pronounced "Bouquet".^[1] The show consisted of five series and 44 episodes, four of which were Christmas specials. Production ended in 1995 after Routledge decided to move on to other projects. All 44 episodes have since been released on video, DVD and streaming media.

The sitcom follows Hyacinth in her attempts to prove her social superiority, and to gain standing with those she considers upper class. Her attempts are constantly hampered by her lower class extended family, whom she is desperate to hide. Much of the humour comes from the conflict between Hyacinth's vision of herself and the reality of her underclass background. In each episode, she lands in a farcical situation as she battles to protect her social credibility.

Keeping Up Appearances was an immense success in the UK, and also captured large audiences in the United States, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Ireland, Belgium, and the Netherlands. By February 2016, it had been sold nearly a thousand times to overseas broadcasters, making it BBC Worldwide's most exported television programme ever. In a 2004 BBC poll it placed 12th in Britain's Best Sitcom. In a 2001 Channel 4 poll, Hyacinth was ranked 52nd on their list of the 100 Greatest TV Characters.^[2] The show has been syndicated on Gold and Drama in the UK, on PBS member stations in the United States and on 7TWO and 9Gem in Australia.