‘THE HOSTESS’

Please feel free to comment on my review.

This is the last episode of Series 5 of ‘Keeping Up Appearances’. It’s not a spectacular season finale, but it’s decent enough. In this episode, Hyacinth advertises herself in the newspaper as a hostess to anyone who wants one. She gets pretty excited about this and she waits for any phone call to come.

There are humorous moments featured in the episode. This includes Hyacinth popping out and back in the house like a ‘demented cuckoo-clock’, according to Emmet. It was also funny when Hyacinth called out to the paper boy, and the boy ran away, with Hyacinth chasing after him down the street.

During the episode, Hyacinth waits at home for phone calls to come through and even has Richard posted at the telephone to pick up the calls. Richard can’t even have a cup of coffee whilst Hyacinth’s entertaining Elizabeth, as he’s told to stay put. I enjoyed Richard’s sarcasm in the episode.

There’s a subplot with Onslow and Daisy in the episode. Daisy recalls having a pink dress at one of Rose’s engagement parties, but neither she, Onslow nor Rose remember. This subplot doesn’t really go anywhere and isn’t relevant to the central plot of the episode whatsoever. This is quite annoying.

Eventually, Hyacinth does have a phone call to come and entertain a party of 20, which she’s very pleased about. But it turns out they’re all men and they assumed Hyacinth was a ‘striptease artist’. It also transpires Daddy is among the party of 20. Hyacinth sends Richard in to get him out of there. 😀

Like I said, this episode isn’t really spectacular to finish off Series 5, but it doesn’t finish the series off entirely, as that would happen in the following Christmas Special. I really laughed at the moment where Hyacinth threw the biscuits off the plate into the air once the phone rang. Liz is not to blame!

This was following the moment where Liz accidentally spilt her coffee onto the biscuits, making them soggy. The episode also features Robert Rawles as the milkman, who’s accompanied by John Waterhouse. I’m not sure if he’s the milkman’s son or his assistant, especially since he’s quite young.

There’s also Ian Burford who plays David, one of Richard’s friends. Ian Burford has been in ‘Keeping Up Appearances’ before, as he was in ‘Daisy’s Toyboy’ and ‘Violet’s Country Cottage’. Not sure if it’s the same character that he plays in all three episodes. I think this is the first time he’s called David. 😐

‘The Hostess’ rating – 7/10