Young Hyacinth

Rose (Katie Redford), Daisy (Katherine Pearce), Daddy (Mark Addy), Hyacinth (Kerry Howard) and Violet (Tamla Kari) in the prequel to KEEPING UP APPEARANCES.

Credit: Courtesy of BBC/Colin Hutton

Young Hyacinth is a comedy prequel to the popular BBC series Keeping Up Appearances, set in the 1950s and charting the early life of the remarkable Hyacinth, who is frantically trying to force her family to climb the social ladder. The prequel follows Hyacinth’s attempts to prove her social superiority and gain standing with those she considers upper class, efforts that are constantly hampered by her decidedly lower class extended family — whom she desperately seeks to hide. Young Hyacinth premieres Saturday, December 2, 2017 at 8 p.m. on WXXI-TV.

Long before she became Mrs. Bucket (which Hyacinth insists should be pronounced “Bouquet”), she was already dreaming of matching china and a bedroom in pastel shades. But her desperate attempts to transform her sisters and her darling Daddy into an altogether better class of family are not appreciated. Daisy goes around wearing Daddy's overalls, Rose has a new boyfriend every week, and if Violet continues consorting with her married manager, she could be inches away from shame and destitution. The girls live together in a crowded canal cottage with their father, a part-time brush salesman with a drinking problem. If only her family were more like the Cooper-Smiths, in whose house Hyacinth works as a maid. Now that she has had a glimpse of how the elegant upper classes live, there can be no looking back.