It’s Bouquet! Comedy star Patricia Routledge captured hearts as TV’s Hyacinth

Dame Patricia Routledge became a household name with her hilarious performances as the unspeakably snobbish Hyacinth Bucket in the TV hit Keeping Up Appearances.

The show, which captivated audiences in the 1990s, attracted as many as 13 million viewers at its peak.

Fan mail included letters from boys as young as eight who were delighted to see a bossy woman “meet her comeuppance”, as she put it.

But her versatility – a word she did not relish because it implied, she said, “not being very good at anything” – took her career far beyond the range of TV sitcoms.

She appeared in Shakespeare and at the age of 66 she played a pensioner-turned-detective, Hetty Wainthropp, in a £3 million six-part BBC TV crime series.

Katherine Patricia Routledge was born on February 17, 1929.

She was educated at Birkenhead High School, the University of Liverpool, Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, and the Guildhall School of Music.

As a youngster, she was undecided between the careers of actress, singer or teacher.

But she failed to win a scholarship to the Royal Manchester School of Music, so gave up the idea of a singing career.

Although she studied English at Liverpool University and still intended to become a teacher, she said she felt “the tuggings of the stage”.

She was taken on as an unpaid assistant stage manager by Liverpool Playhouse and after some months she was offered a job with the company at £5 a week, making her theatre debut in 1952 as Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The young actress made her debut on a London stage in 1954.

Dame Patricia quickly established herself as a major character actress and she became known as “the female Stan Laurel”.

But up to the 1970s she was, if anything, better known on Broadway than in the UK.

She overwhelmed the New York critics with her Broadway performance in the play How’s The World Treating You? and appeared there in musicals as well.

Acclaimed composer Leonard Bernstein later penned solos especially for her as she starred on Broadway in the presidential drama 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Dame Patricia always regarded her mentor as Alistair Sim, whom she played opposite in at least two Pinero comedies.

She said: “From him I learned that comedy is instinct and that once you try to discuss why a laugh is dying you kill it stone dead.”

Extensive TV work in Britain from the 1950s saw her carve out memorable roles as Victoria Regina for Granada in 1964, Kitty in Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV in the mid-1980s.

She also starred alongside the likes of Dame Maggie Smith, Dame Julie Walters and Dame Thora Hird in Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads TV monologues.

Featuring in A Woman Of No Importance and A Lady Of Letters, the programme first aired on the BBC in 1988 with appearances from Dame Patricia along with Dame Eileen Atkins, David Haig, Dame Penelope Wilton, and Bennett himself.

But she won a permanent place in the nation’s affections as Hyacinth Bucket – who insisted her last name was pronounced “bouquet”.

In 1996, a year after the show ended, she was named Britain’s all-time favourite actress.

Alongside her TV and stage performances, she also starred in a number of films including the To Sir, With Love in 1967 alongside Sidney Poitier, the romantic comedy, If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium and Bob Kellett’s Girl Stroke Boy.

Dame Patricia was awarded an OBE in 1993, a CBE in 2004, and was made a dame in the 2017 New Year Honours.

Other accolades included an Olivier Award for her role as the Old Lady in Bernstein’s operetta Candide in 1988 and a Tony Award for her part as Alice Challice in Darling Of The Day in 1968.

Speaking in 2017, she said she had no favoured role from her long career on the stage, adding: “I don’t do beloved roles, I’ve just had a wonderfully interesting time with so many roles.”

Dame Patricia never married and had no children.

She once said: “I didn’t make a decision not to be married and not to be a mother. Life just turned out like that because my involvement in acting was so total.”