Apparently last year the BBC made a prequel special to Keeping Up Appearances about the future Mrs Bucker’s adventures as a housemaid in the late '50s, which just now airing on PBS.
Yes, a 28-minute program bloviated out to 60 minutes by my local PBS station with pledge breaks. I tried to watch it but the pledge breaks were unbearable. I think I caught maybe 20 minutes of it.
They had a little problem with the ages of the girls. Hyacinth is the oldest, but someone at some point said she was supposed to be 18 in this episode Now that I think of it, that was probably just a mistake in the commentary. But at the ages these women were in this show, Rose should have still been in school. I also thought that Mark Addy was all wrong as Daddy, whom we remember as a skinny, addled old man; Mark Addy is chubby and played him as a chronic drunk. He was also a womanizer, which does match the series portrayal.
I did like the insights into the girls’ Mummy, about whom we never hear on the series - i.e.
that all the girls are apparently illegitimate because Mummy and Daddy were never married, that she also liked to drink, a lot, and that the girls may have had 4 different actual fathers because she liked to play around, a lot. It was good enough that I would have liked to see it develop into a new series. What were Richard and Onslow like as young men? When did Daisy develop her libido, which seems totally absent in this one-off program? Rose already has her libido, but in this show it was Violet instead of Rose who was going out with married men. So the development of characters would be interesting up to the point where we first meet them in KUA.
My Sheridan would be APPALLED.
Unfortunately I can’t give an opinion yet since, for some unfathomable reason, WTTW here in Chicago won’t be showing it until the end of December, and so far scheduled only on WTTW Prime. There’s no video listed on the main PBS site either. 
Best username/post combo in history!
Thanks to all for tipping me off to this, will be looking for it.
It’s not listed for either of the two PBS stations for which I have access. Someone please bump this thread if you find it streaming anywhere.
Bummed!!
Also interesting that this show was written by Roy Clarke, who also wrote the original series.
It would have to be called Raising Appearances, wouldn’t it?
Agreed; I signed up for the 1-week free trial of BritBox* to watch in on Amazon, that was much better. It’s a shame it’s just a one off special; I’d watch a series of this. Granted if they showed her courtship with Richard it’d be like watching scene of 3rd class children on the Titanic; at least their suffering only lasted a few hours.
*The BBC also filmed a new episode of Are You Being Served?; :eek: it was just plain bizarre and not in a good way.