Onslow (Keeping Up Appearances)

This page is a list of main characters for the British sitcom Keeping Up Appearances, which ran from 1990 to 1995.

The show's protagonist is the social-climbing snob Hyacinth Bucket (née Walton) (b. 4th December 1929), who insists that her surname is pronounced "Bouquet" with the accent on the second syllable. Hyacinth's primary aims in life are to impress people, particularly of the upper and upper-middle classes, and to give the impression that she is of high social standing, despite her fairly average status. She describes herself as a "local celebrity", and believes she is held in high and enviable esteem by the community for her candlelight suppers, charity work and her involvement in the local amateur dramatics. In an attempt to make callers think she is well-off enough to employ domestic staff, she repeatedly (and famously) answers her beloved pearl-white slim line telephone with automatic redial facility with, "The Bouquet residence; the lady of the house speaking." Those around her despise her snobbery, her meddling and her refusal to listen to others, but she is a genuinely kind-hearted and loving person. Hyacinth tries to avoid her poorer or oddly-behaving relatives (Daisy, Onslow, Rose, Daddy and Bruce) and to hide the fact that she was born into the working-class, while boasting about her richer relative (Violet who has "a Mercedes, sauna, and room for a pony..."), in order to maintain her vaunted social status. If people find out her working class origins all her pretensions will crash since one can never fully escape the class one is born into in the English social system, even if made a peer of the realm. She loves her family dearly (especially in the times of the year it gets dark early) and will rush to their aid in times of need, a trait which temporarily nullifies the pretensions to higher social status and provides relief from her seemingly relentless passion in this regard. She is oblivious to the fact that the upper classes seldom care what others think and play by their own rules which some middle class persons try to copy but are caught out when they make 'code' mistakes.

She frequently refers to or makes preparations for her candlelight suppers, attendance of which almost seem mandatory, but we never actually see one in progress, although her main guests are Elizabeth, Emmet, the Vicar and the Vicar's wife. The candles she uses are green which she pershaps thinks lends class, but looks cute or twee and would never be done in an aristocratic household unless the denizen were eccentric or making a joke. White candles only.

...
Wikipedia