It's Bouquet--Not Bucket!
The Story Behind the Making of an
Extremely Popular Situation Comedy

By Harold Snoad
December 2009
Book Guild
Distributed by Trans Atlantic Publications
ISBN: 9781846243516
196 pages, Illustrated,
$35.95 Hardcover

---

Keeping Up Appearances is one of the best-loved British sitcoms and has now been seen in more than sixty countries around the globe, with a particularly huge following in the USA. The show, originally broadcast on the BBC from 1990 to 1995, starred Patricia Routledge as the unforgettable Hyacinth Bucket – pronounced ‘Bouquet’! – the incorrigible snob whose desperate attempts at social climbing always end in disaster and humiliation.

Throughout the sitcom’s five series (plus four Christmas specials), the producer and director was Harold Snoad, whose directing credits already included such classics as Dad’s Army and The Dick Emery Show. In this hugely entertaining memoir of the series, Snoad takes us behind the scenes and into the hurly-burly world of TV production – from location shooting in the city streets of Britain’s Midlands and the glamorous lounges of the QE2, to the daily grind of schedules and rewrites and the shenanigans and foibles of the actors …

Witty and revealing, It’s Bouquet – Not Bucket offers both an exclusive insight into a great British institution – the situation comedy – and a comprehensive guide to one of its greatest examples, Keeping Up Appearances, with full plot synopses, cast lists and locations. Like the series before it, it’s a book that looks set to gain its own band of avid admirers.

Return to main page of Trans-Atlantic Publications