Comedy prequel to Keeping Up Appearances, set in the 1950s and charting the early life of the remarkable Hyacinth. Long before she became Mrs Bucket (pronounced Bouquet), young Hyacinth 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 drink problem. If only the family were more like the Cooper-Smiths, in whose house Hyacinth works as a maid. Because now she has had a glimpse of how the elegant upper classes live, there can be no looking back.
