‘THE FATHER CHRISTMAS SUIT’
Please feel free to comment on my review.
This is the first Christmas Special to be featured in ‘Keeping Up Appearances’. For me, this is the only one of the four Christmas Specials of the series to feel Christmassy enough. The later three Christmas Specials don’t have any Christmas significance in them at all, apart from two of them being longer.
In this special, Hyacinth hires a Father Christmas outfit for Richard to wear when distributing gifts to the old folk at their local church. It was funny to see Richard in his Father Christmas outfit. He feels uncomfortable wearing it. Hyacinth suggests that he see Elizabeth and Emmet to ask for their opinion. 🙂
At Elizabeth and Emmet’s house, Emmet gets Richard drunk with sherry whilst he’s still in his Father Christmas outfit. It was funny to see Richard and Emmet playing on the piano and singing ‘Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer’. Elizabeth is rather shocked to see Richard in this state, as Hyacinth will ‘kill’ him.
Eventually, Elizabeth takes Richard’s place and wears the Father Christmas outfit to take Hyacinth over to the local church. I found it very amusing that Liz doesn’t say anything at all when she’s driving Hyacinth to the church. Hyacinth doesn’t suspect much either since she chats away in the car.
At the church, Jeremy Gittins guest stars as the Vicar in this Christmas Special. The Vicar tells Hyacinth that her Daddy has come to the church and is causing trouble. Hyacinth soon sorts things by getting Daddy out of there. And how does she do it? She puts her Daddy into a black cat costume.
I found it funny that when Hyacinth discovers Elizabeth is in the Father Christmas suit, she gets to wear the Father Christmas suit too. This is so she can smuggle her Daddy out of the church to get into Onslow and Daisy’s car. Hyacinth has trouble with putting Daddy and his black cat tail in the car.
The highpoint of this special is when Onslow actually kisses Hyacinth in the Father Christmas outfit under the mistletoe. It was hilarious! Onslow assumed it was Elizabeth in the Father Christmas suit, not Hyacinth. Onslow is pretty shaken up after he realises his mistake and Hyacinth shines to him. 😀
I should also probably mention Rose’s boyfriend in the Christmas Special – Mr. Sudbury. Mr. Sudbury is supposed to be tall, elegant and a wonderful dancer. Yet every time I see him, I don’t find him elegant-looking. He’s rather dorky and the dances between him and Rose are very silly in the special.
Tony Kemp guest stars as Mr. Sudbury in the special. There’s also Mark Brackenbury as Mr. Thorgunby, Richard’s boss, and Anett Peters as Mrs. Thorgunby, who has a timid little voice. There’s Robert Packham playing the postman, who only appears in this special, and George Webb as Daddy.
This Christmas Special of ‘Keeping Up Appearances’ has been pretty enjoyable to watch. It’s fair to say that this is the only Christmassy Special of the series. I don’t know why they didn’t do more Christmassy-styled tales in the later Christmas Specials, since this one stands out for me at Christmas.
‘The Father Christmas Suit’ rating – 8/10
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