Keeping Up Appearances?

Hyacinths From Amsterdam

Our favourite TV snob Hyacinth Bucket is parodied by a Dutch TV sketch show (in English but with Dutch subtitles!)

Ray Mortimer

28 March 2023

Oh, Nice!

Hyacinths from Amsterdam, as the song goes (actually it’s tulips, Ed). I know, but we’re talking about our favourite TV snob Hyacinth Bucket – she’s been parodied by a Dutch TV sketch show (in English but with Dutch subtitles!)

Confused? Let me explain.

Whether you’re a fan of ‘that Bucket woman’ or not, you’ll love this spoof sketch actually made by a Dutch TV show, De TV Kantine (The TV Canteen) in English with a man playing Hyacinth!

Calm Down Dear

There’s great attention to detail in both character appearance and vocals, and the set designs are pretty spot on too given this was a one-off sketch.

In fact there are only two actors in the whole thing: Carlo Boszhard (playing Hyacinth and Onslow) and Irene Moors (Elizabeth and Daisy).

In addition to TV Canteen (still running!), Carlo is a jury member on the Dutch version of The Masked Singer, while in 1995, Irene topped the Dutch charts for 6 weeks with the single No Limit.

Candlelight Suppers

Keeping Up Appearances was wildly popular in the Netherlands, and the Dutch seem to have quite a fondness for our comedy and drama output! They tend to use subtitles rather than dubbing, hence the need for Dutch subtitles here.

Look Out For

“I hope they’re having a better time than I do!”

Spoken by ‘Onslow’, this is likely a mis-translation rather than a dig at the character. But I love the bad English – I’m going to put that on a t-shirt! Slightly reminiscent of that Deacon Blue lyric in Real Gone Kid:

“I’ll do what I should have did”