🎬 Melissa P. (2005)

 

Hyacinth Bucket ("Bouquet") (Patricia Routledge)

The main protagonist, if you want to call her that. Hyacinth Bucket (or "Bouquet" as she prefers) is a pompous middle-class woman living in The Midlands with her husband Richard. Determined to be a Grande Dame, Hyacinth's snobbish ways make her come off as a Jerkass. Her numerous attempts to climb the ladder of classes often fail due to her own incompetence, the unexpected appearance of her lower class family members, or other reasons.

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• Berserk Button: It's pronounced "Bouquet"! That doesn't stop even her from forgetting on occasion, as seen in one of the Christmas Episodes.
• British Stuffiness: When she gets mad, she almost always tries to conceal it, though she usually fails.
• Butt-Monkey: She is considerably unlucky, as all of her attempts at climbing the social ladder are often thwarted by random things such as her less-than-refined relatives. She is often the butt of many jokes because nobody likes her except for Elizabeth and her family (with the exception of Onslow).
• Can't Hold Her Liquor: As demonstrated by a glass too many of the Dowager Lady Ursula's home-goose wade-berry mine.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • When answering the phone, she says "The Bouquet residence, the lady of the house speaking." This is to imply that there are servants who might have answered the phone in her stead.
  • When Elizabeth goes for the wrong seat in the kitchen: "No, not there, dear. I like to face the window."
  • When Daisy and Rose have problems with their father: "I'd have him at home, but he..."
  • When one of her sisters calls: "It's my sister, [Daisy, Rose or Violet]. She's [not] the one with the Mercedes, sauna and room for a pony."
  • For specific parties:
    • "tea and light refreshments"
    • "waterside supper with riparian entertainments"
    • "outdoors-indoors luxury barbecue with finger buffet"
    • "bon vivant buffet and al fresco munchiettes"
  • When speaking of her home phone: "...my white, slim-line, push-button telephone with last-number redial."
  • When answering said phone: "It's probably someone important."
• Church Lady: Commandeers all the Ladies' Guild activities but balks at the idea of getting her hands dirty. The Vicar tends to panic when he learns of her imminent arrival at the church.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Let's just say she lives in her own world apart from the rest of the cast.
• Constantly Spells Their Name: She regularly spells her surname, which is justified, as she insists it is pronounced "Bouquet".
  Hyacinth: And good morning to you. My name is Mrs. Bouquet, B-U-C-K-E-T.
• Daddy's Girl: One of her redeeming aspects is her open care for her father, despite him being an insane Dirty Old Man who completely contrasts with her attempts at grandeur.
• The Dreaded: People have been known to run and hide just knowing she's in the same building.
• Everyone Has Standards: In the first episode, she refuses to send Sheridan money when he says he'll pay her back after he robs his first bank.
• Fancy Dinner: Nothing excites her more than organizing a candlelight supper.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: A revenge scheme against Lydia Hawksworth in Series 5 ends with her and Richard being taken in for questioning over a Rolls Royce in front of not just Onslow, Daisy and Rose but also Lydia. Naturally, she tries to downplay the ensuing immediate embarrassment as much as possible.
• Grass Is Greener: She holds Violet in higher regard than her other sisters and brags about her at every opportunity, due to having achieved a wealthy high class lifestyle she so greatly desires. Throughout many exchanges however, it becomes apparent that Violet's personal life is anything but blissful, and most of her rare onscreen appearances amount to her risking embarrassment for Hyacinth much in the same way as Rose, Daisy and Onslow.
• The Hilarity of Hats: The sillier her hat, the louder the canned laughter.
• Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Emmet is constantly terrified of Hyacinth: "She'll sing at me! She always sings at me!"
• House Wife: Say what you will about her: She does keep a clean house and she seems to be quite a good cook and gardener. Richard admits that this is a big reason he's stayed married to her all these years.
• Hypocritical Humor: This trope was meant for her. She frequently denies bragging about herself or her supposed social status after doing just that and states several times that she hates snobbery.
• Incoming Ham: Head for the hills! It's the Bucket woman!
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Demands "a very large whiskey" after an unfortunate incident on the back of a lorry.
• Informed Attractiveness: The Major, a commodore, a country yokel, and the Spanish Mr. Ferrini find Hyacinth irresistible, as does she herself. "It's as if he's never seen an attractive woman!"
• Innocently Insensitive: Hyacinth loves her family and is a very kind and outgoing person... it's just that she's also one of the most extremely overbearing people you can imagine, to the point where her ideas about what's best for others often clash with what they want to do, and most people are too polite to stand up to her.
• Insistent Terminology:
  • Towards her last name, which she insists is pronounced like "bouquet", not "bucket".
  • Also applies to Daddy's long-dead World War II commander, Colonel Dawlish. Whenever people refer to him as "Colonel" Dawlish, Hyacinth is always quick to respond with "Colonel? He finished up a Brigadier General, you know."
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: For all her social climbing, a lot of her pompous antics do have some sort of good intention. She is more inconsiderate and affectionately suffocating to Richard than intentionally abusive or callous and often attempts (badly) to improve his lifestyle in some manner. She also very earnestly loves her daddy and is infuriated by her relatives' occasionally neglectful treatment of him, and is implied to love her son devotedly (albeit to the extent of spoiling him).
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Often reveals herself to be this when she tries to make people think she's knowledgeable and sophisticated. One notable example occurs when Hyacinth organizes a pageant based on the English Civil War, with Richard as Charles I and herself as Charles' queen consort, Henrietta Maria, whom she believes was English, much to Emmet's great amusement.^note 
• Large Ham: Her emotions can be very put-on at times, or very badly concealed. She once shrieked that there was no doily under a container of cookies and scrambled to the cupboard to remedy this.
• Mama Bear: She doesn't approve of anything that would get her Sheridan into trouble.
• Narcissist: She either sees herself as the center of the universe or very much wants to get there.
• Never My Fault: Oh boy! The Cruise Special is a good example when she blames Richard for getting too late on the cruise. He was simply driving the car while she was giving instructions where to go.
• Nosy Neighbor: Just ask Emmet! She's constantly trying to get into his business, partly because he employs singing talent.
• N-Word Privileges: Implicitly extends them to Mrs. Councillor Nugent in regards to the pronunciation of her surname.
• Obnoxious Entitled Housewife: Whilst mostly a pretentious social climber, she also has shades of this. Her deluded attempts at appearing upper class have left a large number of people utterly terrified of her and attempting to avoid her at all costs. Her postman in particular goes out of his way to avoid her frequent and unrealistic demands that her posts receive first class status regardless of the stamp. She attempted to force her Henpecked Husband Richard to call the Chinese ambassador to force the local Chinese takeaway to change its phone number, due to it being only one number different from theirs and leading to people mistakenly calling them. At one point, when shopping for a new kitchen counter, she brought along a series of hard-to-clean foods which she deliberately tipped over the display model to see if it would stain. She even forces the Vicar to visit to consult him about whether to decorate her living room with angel Gabriel blue paint or Lucifer Red.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • In a series 2 episode, Hyacinth gets in the car with Emmet and doesn't sing at him once. Elizabeth notes that for that to happen, she must be in some kind of panic.
  • You know she's genuinely angry when even she forgets how her name is supposed to be pronounced. When she calls Richard by his full name she's beyond devastated.
• Only Sane Man: Considers herself this among her family. Everyone sees her as the nutcase. Episodes tend to flip flop which side is closer to the truth.
• Patriotic Fervor: Loves singing anthems like "Rule Britannia," keeps a portrait of Winston Churchill in her dining room, and tries to find out how the Queen will be dressing for an event because "one has a royal duty not to clash."
• Pet the Dog: Has her moments when her more maternal, kindly attributes pay off. She may consider some of her actions this towards other characters, believing her services as a figure of higher social standards will benefit the lives of the less fortunate.
• Precision F-Strike: A mild one in the second episode when she complains to her relatives about the latest person to call her about Chinese food.
  Hyacinth: I was dealing with a wrong number. Some damn fool thinks I'm a Chinese restaurant...
• Pretentious Pronunciation: Hyacinth insists that her surname is pronounced 'Bouquet' (as in flowers). Her husband Richard—whose family name it actually is—is fine with being called 'Bucket' (provided that Hyacinth isn't around, that is).
• Rich Bitch: Hyacinth is a strange subversion; she acts like she's got high social standing, and wants to appear wealthy and cultured, criticizing other people's tendency to be "economical", but she and Richard are hardly millionaires.
• The Rival: Of Mrs. Barker-Finch, Lydia Hawksworth, and Delia Wheelwright, or so she insists.
• Running Gag:
  • Every time she goes to visit her lower-class relatives, their dog barks at her as she walks up to the house, startling her and causing her to fall into a nearby hedge.
  • She answers every phone with her Catch Phrase: "The Bouquet residence, the lady of the house speaking!"
  • She is often called by customers for the local Chinese takeaway (identified in a couple of episodes as the Green Lotus), since their numbers are only one digit removed. In one episode, she attempts to put an end to this by having Richard call the Chinese ambassador to get the company to change their number, to no avail.
• Selective Obliviousness: Few have her knack for not hearing what she doesn't want to hear.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Why use "riverside" when "riparian" is so much higher-class?
• A Simple Plan: Hyacinth's plots to raise her social status.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Somewhat subverted. Hyacinth considers several of her neighbours to be rivals. The closest may be her brother-in-law Onslow, who she considers to be vulgar and lazy (which is true). She is terrified of him entering her house, concerned about what the neighbours would think, and that his mere presence will somehow rot the wallpaper. Yet, they have moments of understanding and can get on pretty well depending on the occasion. For instance, the cruise episode has Hyacinth display a rare moment of humility, congratulating Onslow for winning a luxury holiday on the said cruise ship, and dancing together.
  • The people who keep ringing up to order Chinese takeaway may count as this.
• Small Name, Big Ego:
  • In the final episode, she presumes to tell God how to pronounce her name, yelling to Richard, "Tell God it's 'Bouquet'!"
  • In the Cruise Special, she frets about whether the crew has somehow left the captain stranded. Richard tells her it's unlikely they would have done that, to which she replies, "They left me!" Notice that she said "me" and not "us".
• Smart People Speak the Queen's English: Speaks with received pronunciation despite the show being set in the West Midlands. Occasionally her regional accent slips through.
• Social Climber: She successfully rose from the working class to the middle class, but she remains dissatisfied and seeks to vault up the social ladder further still, always failing miserably and humiliatingly.
• Unsatisfiable Customer: She's actually once called the water treatment plant complaining that her water wasn't as bright and sparkling as she's accustomed to, and that she thinks her water has been used!
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: You feel sympathy for the people around her, but not much for her!
• Villain Protagonist: At her worst, she ends up working against other people, but the plots still tend to focus on her.
• White Gloves: Typically wears these outside of the house and occasionally uses them to check for dust in public places.