Patricia Routledge
Encyclopedia
Katherine Patricia Routledge, CBE
(born 17 February 1929) is an English
character comedy
actress
and singer
. She is best known for her role as character Hyacinth Bucket (supposedly pronounced "Bouquet") in the British television series Keeping Up Appearances
and Hetty Wainthropp in the British television series Hetty Wainthropp Investigates
. In addition to her roles in British television, she has a long and successful career in musical theatre, as well as in film.
, Birkenhead
to parents Catherine and Isaac Routledge. She was educated at Mersey Park Primary School
, Birkenhead High School
, now a state-funded Academy school, and the University of Liverpool
. At Liverpool she graduated with Honours in English Language and Literature and was not on a path to pursue an acting career. She was, however, involved in the school's Dramatic Society where she worked closely with the academic Edmund Colledge
who both directed and acted in several of the society's productions. It was Colledge who persuaded her to pursue an acting career. After graduating from Liverpool, she trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School
and launched her acting career at the Liverpool Playhouse
.
and the US
. She has been a long-standing member of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), appearing in such acclaimed productions as the 1983 Richard III, which starred Anthony Sher, who played the title role on crutches. Her West End
credits include Little Mary Sunshine
, Cowardy Custard
, Virtue in Danger, Noises Off
, The Importance of Being Earnest
, and The Solid Gold Cadillac
, as well as a number of less successful vehicles. A classically trained singer, she has occasionally made forays into operetta
; including portraying the title role in an acclaimed production of Jacques Offenbach
's La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein
at the 1978 Camden Festival
.
Routledge made her Broadway
debut in the short-lived 1968 musical Darling of the Day
, for which she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, sharing the honour with Leslie Uggams
of Hallelujah, Baby!
. Following Darling of the Day, Routledge had roles in several more unsuccessful Broadway
productions including a musical called Love Match, in which she played Queen Victoria
; the legendary 1976 Leonard Bernstein
flop, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
, in which she portrayed every First Lady
from Abigail Adams
to Edith Roosevelt
; and a 1981 musical called Say Hello to Harvey, based on the Mary Coyle Chase
play Harvey
, which closed in Toronto
before reaching New York.
In 1980, Routledge played Ruth in the Joseph Papp
production of The Pirates of Penzance
co-starring American actor Kevin Kline
and pop vocalist Linda Ronstadt
, at the Delacorte Theatre in New York City
's Central Park
, one of the series of Shakespeare in the Park
summer events. The show was a hit and transferred to Broadway the following January, but Estelle Parsons
replaced Routledge. A DVD
of the Central Park
production, with Routledge, was released in October 2002.
In 1988 Routledge won a Laurence Olivier Award for her portrayal of the Old Lady in Leonard Bernstein
's Candide
in the London cast of the critically acclaimed Scottish Opera
production. She played the role of Nettie Fowler to great acclaim in the 1993 London production of Carousel
. In a 2006 Hampstead Theatre
production of The Best of Friends
, based on a book by Hugh Whitemore
, she portrayed Dame Laurentia McLachlan
, OSB
. The play focused on her friendships with Sir Sydney Cockerell and George Bernard Shaw
. In 2008 she played Queen Mary in Royce Ryton
's play Crown Matrimonial.
More recent work include the narrator in The Carnival of the Animals
with the Nash Ensemble
in 2010 and the role of Myra Hess
in the play Admission: One Shilling in 2011.
(1967), Pretty Polly
(1967), The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom
(1968), Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River
(1968), and If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium
(1969).
Routledge's early television appearances included a role in Steptoe and Son
, in the episode "Seance in a Wet Rag and Bone Yard" (1974) as a clairvoyant called Madame Fontana. She also appeared in Coronation Street
, and as a white witch in Doctor at Large (1971).
However, she did not come to prominence on television until she featured in monologues written for her by Alan Bennett
from 1978 (A Visit from Miss Protheroe) and later Victoria Wood
in the 1980s. She first appeared in Alan Bennett
's A Woman of No Importance in 1982, and then as the opinionated Kitty in Victoria Wood As Seen On TV
in 1985. She performed two further monologues in Bennett's Talking Heads
in 1987 and 1998.
In 1990, Routledge landed the role of Hyacinth Bucket
in the comedy series Keeping Up Appearances
. She portrayed a former working-class woman with social pretensions (insisting her surname be pronounced "bouquet") and delusions of grandeur (her oft-mentioned "candlelight suppers"). Routledge delighted in portraying Hyacinth as she claimed she couldn't stand people like her in real life. In 1991 she won a British Comedy Award for her portrayal, and she was later nominated for two BAFTA TV Awards in 1992 and 1993. The series ended at Routledge's request in 1995.
In 1995, Routledge accepted the lead in another long-running series, playing Hetty Wainthropp in the mystery drama Hetty Wainthropp Investigates
, co-starring rising star Dominic Monaghan
as her assistant and Derek Benfield
as her husband. It first aired in January 1996, and ran until the autumn of 1998, with one special episode in 1999.
She has also played several real-life characters on television including Barbara Pym
and Hildegard of Bingen
.
In 2001, Routledge starred in Anybody's Nightmare
, a fact-based television drama in which she played a piano teacher who served four years in prison for murdering her elderly aunt, but was acquitted following a retrial.
plays and the BBC dramatisation of Carole Hayman
's Ladies of Letters
, in which she and Prunella Scales
play retired women exchanging humorous correspondence over the course of several years. A tenth series of Ladies of Letters premiered on BBC Radio 4
in 2009.
Having a distinctive voice, Routledge has also recorded and released a variety of audiobooks including unabridged readings of Wuthering Heights
and Alice's Adventures In Wonderland
and abridged novelisations of the Hetty Wainthropp series.
In 1966 she sang the role of Mad Margaret in Ruddigore
, the title role in Iolanthe
, and Melissa in Princess Ida
, in a series of BBC radio Gilbert and Sullivan recordings. She took part in a studio broadcast of Tchaikovsky's opera Vakula the Smith
(narrating excerpts from the work by Gogol
) in 1990. In 2006 she was featured in a programme of the 'Stage and Screen' series on Radio 3.
, West Sussex
. She was appointed OBE
in 1993, and CBE
in 2004.
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(born 17 February 1929) is an English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
character comedy
Character comedy
Character comedy is a method/genre used by some comedians. In character comedy the comedian performs as though he was a character created by him/her...
actress
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
and singer
Singing
Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
. She is best known for her role as character Hyacinth Bucket (supposedly pronounced "Bouquet") in the British television series Keeping Up Appearances
Keeping Up Appearances
Keeping Up Appearances is a British sitcom created and written by Roy Clarke for the BBC. Centred on the life of eccentric, social-climbing snob Hyacinth Bucket , the sitcom portrays a social hierarchy-ruled British society...
and Hetty Wainthropp in the British television series Hetty Wainthropp Investigates
Hetty Wainthropp Investigates
Hetty Wainthropp Investigates is a genteel British crime–comedy drama television series which aired from 1996 to 1998 on BBC One. The series starred Patricia Routledge as the title character , Derek Benfield as her patient husband Robert, Dominic Monaghan as their lodger Geoffrey Shawcross...
. In addition to her roles in British television, she has a long and successful career in musical theatre, as well as in film.
Early life and education
Katherine Patricia Routledge was born in TranmereTranmere, Merseyside
Tranmere is a suburb of Birkenhead, on the Wirral Peninsula, England. Administratively, it is also a ward of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral. Before local government reorganisation on 1 April 1974, it was part of the County Borough of Birkenhead, within the geographical county of Cheshire...
, Birkenhead
Birkenhead
Birkenhead is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral in Merseyside, England. It is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the west bank of the River Mersey, opposite the city of Liverpool...
to parents Catherine and Isaac Routledge. She was educated at Mersey Park Primary School
Mersey Park Primary School
Mersey Park is a primary school in the Tranmere area of Birkenhead, Merseyside, England. It is a mixed, non-denominational establishment, under the control of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral....
, Birkenhead High School
Birkenhead High School
Birkenhead High School Academy is an all-ability state funded girls' Academy in Birkenhead, Wirral.-Admissions:It is a member of the Girls' Day School Trust, a national educational charity based in London. Its predecessor school was Birkenhead High School, which was an independent selective school...
, now a state-funded Academy school, and the University of Liverpool
University of Liverpool
The University of Liverpool is a teaching and research university in the city of Liverpool, England. It is a member of the Russell Group of large research-intensive universities and the N8 Group for research collaboration. Founded in 1881 , it is also one of the six original "red brick" civic...
. At Liverpool she graduated with Honours in English Language and Literature and was not on a path to pursue an acting career. She was, however, involved in the school's Dramatic Society where she worked closely with the academic Edmund Colledge
Edmund Colledge
Edmund Colledge was an English academic, military officer, and Roman Catholic priest. He is chiefly known for his scholarly publications on European medieval literature, and in particular spiritual writers from that era. His 1962 anthology, The Medieval Mystics of England, is still widely used in...
who both directed and acted in several of the society's productions. It was Colledge who persuaded her to pursue an acting career. After graduating from Liverpool, she trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School
Bristol Old Vic Theatre School
The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, opened by Laurence Olivier in 1946, is an affiliate of the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama, an organisation securing the highest standards of training in the performing arts, and is an associate school of the Faculty of Creative Arts of the University of the...
and launched her acting career at the Liverpool Playhouse
Liverpool Playhouse
The Liverpool Playhouse is a theatre in Williamson Square in the city of Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It originated in 1866 as a music hall, and in 1911 developed into a repertory theatre. As such it nurtured the early careers of many actors and actresses, some of which went on to achieve...
.
Theatre
Routledge has had a prolific career in theatre, particularly musical theatre, in the UKUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and the US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. She has been a long-standing member of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), appearing in such acclaimed productions as the 1983 Richard III, which starred Anthony Sher, who played the title role on crutches. Her West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
credits include Little Mary Sunshine
Little Mary Sunshine
Little Mary Sunshine is a musical that parodies old-fashioned operettas and musicals. The book, music, and lyrics are by Rick Besoyan. The musical should not be confused with the 1916 silent film of the same name ....
, Cowardy Custard
Cowardy Custard
Cowardy Custard is a musical revue and was one of the last Noël Coward shows staged during his life. It was devised by Gerard Frow, Alan Strachan and Wendy Toye. A book, also titled Cowardy Custard, was published in connection with the revue, similarly celebrating the Coward image.The biographical...
, Virtue in Danger, Noises Off
Noises Off
Noises Off is a 1982 play by English playwright Michael Frayn. The idea for it was born in 1970, when Frayn was standing in the wings watching a performance of Chinamen, a farce that he had written for Lynn Redgrave...
, The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at St. James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae in order to escape burdensome social obligations...
, and The Solid Gold Cadillac
The Solid Gold Cadillac
The Solid Gold Cadillac is a 1956 film directed by Richard Quine and written by Abe Burrows, Howard Teichmann and George S. Kaufman. It was adapted from the hit Broadway play of the same name by Teichmann and Kaufman, in which they pillory big business and corrupt businessmen...
, as well as a number of less successful vehicles. A classically trained singer, she has occasionally made forays into operetta
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
; including portraying the title role in an acclaimed production of Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
's La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein
La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein
La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein is an opéra bouffe , in three acts and four tableaux by Jacques Offenbach to an original French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy...
at the 1978 Camden Festival
Camden Festival
Camdem Festival was an annual spring festival held in London, England, of which opera was the central feature.Founded in 1954 and continuing until 1987, it was originally called the St Pancras Festival until 1965. It specialised in the revival of long-forgotten operas, some of which subsequently...
.
Routledge made her Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
debut in the short-lived 1968 musical Darling of the Day
Darling of the Day (musical)
Darling of the Day is a musical with a book by Nunnally Johnson, lyrics by E.Y. Harburg, and music by Jule Styne. It is based on Arnold Bennett's novel Buried Alive and his play The Great Adventure...
, for which she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, sharing the honour with Leslie Uggams
Leslie Uggams
Leslie Uggams is an American actress and singer, perhaps best known for her work in Hallelujah, Baby! She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.-Singing:...
of Hallelujah, Baby!
Hallelujah, Baby!
Hallelujah, Baby! is a musical with music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Adolph Green and Betty Comden, and a book by Arthur Laurents. The show is "a musical chronicle of the African American struggle for equality during the [first half of the] 20th century."...
. Following Darling of the Day, Routledge had roles in several more unsuccessful Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
productions including a musical called Love Match, in which she played Queen Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....
; the legendary 1976 Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
flop, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (musical)
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is a 1976 musical with music by Leonard Bernstein and book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner. It is considered to be a legendary Broadway flop, running only seven performances...
, in which she portrayed every First Lady
First Lady
First Lady or First Gentlemanis the unofficial title used in some countries for the spouse of an elected head of state.It is not normally used to refer to the spouse or partner of a prime minister; the husband or wife of the British Prime Minister is usually informally referred to as prime...
from Abigail Adams
Abigail Adams
Abigail Adams was the wife of John Adams, who was the second President of the United States, and the mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth...
to Edith Roosevelt
Edith Roosevelt
Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt was the second wife of Theodore Roosevelt and served as First Lady of the United States during his presidency from 1901 to 1909.-Early life:...
; and a 1981 musical called Say Hello to Harvey, based on the Mary Coyle Chase
Mary Coyle Chase
Mary Coyle Chase was an American journalist, playwright and screenwriter, known primarily for writing the Broadway play Harvey, later adapted for film starring James Stewart...
play Harvey
Harvey (play)
Harvey is a 1944 play by American playwright Mary Chase. Produced by Brock Pemberton and directed by Antoinette Perry, the play premiered on 1 November 1944 at the 48th Street Theatre on Broadway where it was staged for 1,775 performances before closing on January 15, 1949. The original production...
, which closed in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
before reaching New York.
In 1980, Routledge played Ruth in the Joseph Papp
Joseph Papp
Joseph Papp was an American theatrical producer and director. Papp established The Public Theater in what had been the Astor Library Building in downtown New York . "The Public," as it is known, has many small theatres within it...
production of The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera's official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where the show was well received by both audiences...
co-starring American actor Kevin Kline
Kevin Kline
Kevin Delaney Kline is an American theatre, voice, film actor and comedian. He has won an Academy Award and two Tony Awards, and has been nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, two BAFTA Awards and an Emmy Award.- Early life :...
and pop vocalist Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt is an American popular music recording artist. She has earned eleven Grammy Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, an ALMA Award, numerous United States and internationally certified gold, platinum and multiplatinum albums, in addition to Tony Award and Golden...
, at the Delacorte Theatre in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
's Central Park
Central Park
Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...
, one of the series of Shakespeare in the Park
Shakespeare in the Park
Shakespeare in the Park is a concept used across the world, as a form of free public presentation of William Shakespeare's works. Such performances exist in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America....
summer events. The show was a hit and transferred to Broadway the following January, but Estelle Parsons
Estelle Parsons
Estelle Margaret Parsons is an American theatre, film and television actress and occasional theatrical director.After studying law, Parsons became a singer before deciding to pursue a career in acting. She worked for the television program Today and made her stage debut in 1961...
replaced Routledge. A DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
of the Central Park
Central Park
Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...
production, with Routledge, was released in October 2002.
In 1988 Routledge won a Laurence Olivier Award for her portrayal of the Old Lady in Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
's Candide
Candide (operetta)
Candide is an operetta with music composed by Leonard Bernstein, based on the novella of the same name by Voltaire. The operetta was first performed in 1956 with a libretto by Lillian Hellman; but since 1974 it has been generally performed with a book by Hugh Wheeler which is more faithful to...
in the London cast of the critically acclaimed Scottish Opera
Scottish Opera
Scottish Opera is the national opera company of Scotland, and one of the five national performing arts companies funded by the Scottish Government...
production. She played the role of Nettie Fowler to great acclaim in the 1993 London production of Carousel
Carousel (musical)
Carousel is the second stage musical by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II . The work premiered in 1945 and was adapted from Ferenc Molnár's 1909 play Liliom, transplanting its Budapest setting to the Maine coastline...
. In a 2006 Hampstead Theatre
Hampstead Theatre
Hampstead Theatre is a theatre in the vicinity of Swiss Cottage and Belsize Park, in the London Borough of Camden. It specialises in commissioning and producing new writing, supporting and developing the work of new writers. In 2009 it celebrates its 50 year anniversary.The original theatre was...
production of The Best of Friends
The Best of Friends
The Best of Friends is a compilation album by singer/songwriter duo Loggins and Messina, released in late 1976 ....
, based on a book by Hugh Whitemore
Hugh Whitemore
Hugh Whitemore is an English playwright and screenwriter.Whitemore studied for the stage at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where he is now a Member of the Council. He began his writing career in British television with both original teleplays and adaptations of classic works by Charles...
, she portrayed Dame Laurentia McLachlan
Laurentia McLachlan
Dame Laurentia McLachlan, OSB was born in 1866 in Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, Scotland. In 1884 she joined the Benedictine Abbey at Stanbrook Abbey. In 1931 she was elected Abbess of Stanbrook...
, OSB
OSB
OSB may stand for:* Oracle Service Bus, a software component* Order of Saint Benedict, a monastic order* Orthodox Study Bible, an Eastern Orthodox study Bible in English, including the Septuagint* Oregon State Bar...
. The play focused on her friendships with Sir Sydney Cockerell and George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
. In 2008 she played Queen Mary in Royce Ryton
Royce Ryton
Royce Thomas Carlisle Ryton was an English playwright. During the war he served in the Royal Navy; afterward, he went to train as an actor at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. As an actor, he played in many repertory theatres, including Bromley, Minehead, and Worthing. He also toured...
's play Crown Matrimonial.
More recent work include the narrator in The Carnival of the Animals
The Carnival of the Animals
Le carnaval des animaux is a musical suite of fourteen movements by the French Romantic composer Camille Saint-Saëns. The orchestral work has a duration between 22 and 30 minutes.-History:...
with the Nash Ensemble
Nash Ensemble
The Nash Ensemble of London is an acclaimed English chamber ensemble. It was founded by Artistic Director Amelia Freedman in 1964, while she was a student at the Royal Academy of Music, and was named after the Nash Terraces around the Academy...
in 2010 and the role of Myra Hess
Myra Hess
Dame Myra Hess DBE was a British pianist.She was born in London as Julia Myra Hess, but was best known by her middle name. At the age of five she began to study the piano and two years later entered the Guildhall School of Music, where she graduated as winner of the Gold Medal...
in the play Admission: One Shilling in 2011.
Film and television
Routledge's screen credits include To Sir, with LoveTo Sir, with Love
To Sir, With Love is a 1967 British drama film starring Sidney Poitier that deals with social and racial issues in an inner city school. James Clavell both directed and wrote the film's screenplay, based on the semi-autobiographical novel of the same name by E. R. Braithwaite.The film's title song...
(1967), Pretty Polly
Pretty Polly (film)
Pretty Polly, also known as A Matter of Innocence, is a 1967 British film, directed by Guy Green and based on the short story, Pretty Polly Barlow, by Noël Coward. It stars Hayley Mills, Shashi Kapoor, Trevor Howard, Brenda De Banzie...
(1967), The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom
The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom
The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom is a 1968 British comedy film directed by Joseph McGrath. The screenplay by Alec Coppel and Denis Norden was adapted from a play by Coppel that was based on a short story by Josef Shaftel, who served as the film's producer.-Plot:...
(1968), Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River
Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River
Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River is a British made comedy film produced by Walter Shenson starring Jerry Lewis and was released on July 12, 1968 by Columbia Pictures. It was based on Max Wilk's novel of the same name with the original Connecticut locale moved to Swinging London and...
(1968), and If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium
If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium
If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium is a 1969 romantic comedy film made by Wolper Pictures and released by United Artists. It was directed by Mel Stuart, filmed on location throughout Europe, and features many cameo appearances from various stars....
(1969).
Routledge's early television appearances included a role in Steptoe and Son
Steptoe and Son
Steptoe and Son is a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about two rag and bone men living in Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherd's Bush, London. Four series were broadcast by the BBC from 1962 to 1965, followed by a second run from 1970 to 1974. Its theme tune, "Old...
, in the episode "Seance in a Wet Rag and Bone Yard" (1974) as a clairvoyant called Madame Fontana. She also appeared in Coronation Street
Coronation Street
Coronation Street is a British soap opera set in Weatherfield, a fictional town in Greater Manchester based on Salford. Created by Tony Warren, Coronation Street was first broadcast on 9 December 1960...
, and as a white witch in Doctor at Large (1971).
However, she did not come to prominence on television until she featured in monologues written for her by Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett is a British playwright, screenwriter, actor and author. Born in Leeds, he attended Oxford University where he studied history and performed with The Oxford Revue. He stayed to teach and research mediaeval history at the university for several years...
from 1978 (A Visit from Miss Protheroe) and later Victoria Wood
Victoria Wood
Victoria Wood CBE is a British comedienne, actress, singer-songwriter, screenwriter and director. Wood has written and starred in sketches, plays, films and sitcoms, and her live stand-up comedy act is interspersed with her own compositions, which she accompanies on piano...
in the 1980s. She first appeared in Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett is a British playwright, screenwriter, actor and author. Born in Leeds, he attended Oxford University where he studied history and performed with The Oxford Revue. He stayed to teach and research mediaeval history at the university for several years...
's A Woman of No Importance in 1982, and then as the opinionated Kitty in Victoria Wood As Seen On TV
Victoria Wood As Seen On TV
Victoria Wood As Seen On TV was a British comedy sketch series starring comedienne Victoria Wood, with Julie Walters, Celia Imrie, Duncan Preston, Susie Blake and Patricia Routledge...
in 1985. She performed two further monologues in Bennett's Talking Heads
Talking Heads (plays)
Talking Heads is a series of dramatic monologues written for BBC television by British playwright Alan Bennett. The two series were first broadcast in 1988 and 1998, and have since been broadcast on BBC Radio and included on the A-level and GCSE English Literature syllabus.A West End theatre...
in 1987 and 1998.
In 1990, Routledge landed the role of Hyacinth Bucket
Hyacinth Bucket
Hyacinth Bucket, who insists her last name is pronounced "Bouquet" , is the main character in the BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances , played by Patricia Routledge.-Personality:...
in the comedy series Keeping Up Appearances
Keeping Up Appearances
Keeping Up Appearances is a British sitcom created and written by Roy Clarke for the BBC. Centred on the life of eccentric, social-climbing snob Hyacinth Bucket , the sitcom portrays a social hierarchy-ruled British society...
. She portrayed a former working-class woman with social pretensions (insisting her surname be pronounced "bouquet") and delusions of grandeur (her oft-mentioned "candlelight suppers"). Routledge delighted in portraying Hyacinth as she claimed she couldn't stand people like her in real life. In 1991 she won a British Comedy Award for her portrayal, and she was later nominated for two BAFTA TV Awards in 1992 and 1993. The series ended at Routledge's request in 1995.
In 1995, Routledge accepted the lead in another long-running series, playing Hetty Wainthropp in the mystery drama Hetty Wainthropp Investigates
Hetty Wainthropp Investigates
Hetty Wainthropp Investigates is a genteel British crime–comedy drama television series which aired from 1996 to 1998 on BBC One. The series starred Patricia Routledge as the title character , Derek Benfield as her patient husband Robert, Dominic Monaghan as their lodger Geoffrey Shawcross...
, co-starring rising star Dominic Monaghan
Dominic Monaghan
Dominic Bernard Patrick Luke Monaghan is an English actor. He has received international attention from playing Merry in Peter Jackson's adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and for his role as Charlie Pace on the television show Lost....
as her assistant and Derek Benfield
Derek Benfield
Derek Benfield was a British playwright and actor.He was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, and educated at Bingley Grammar School. He was the author of the stage farce Running Riot and the second actor who played Patricia Routledge's character's husband in Hetty Wainthropp Investigates...
as her husband. It first aired in January 1996, and ran until the autumn of 1998, with one special episode in 1999.
She has also played several real-life characters on television including Barbara Pym
Barbara Pym
Barbara Mary Crampton Pym was an English novelist. In 1977 her career was revived when two prominent writers, Lord David Cecil and Philip Larkin, nominated her as the most underrated writer of the century...
and Hildegard of Bingen
Hildegard of Bingen
Blessed Hildegard of Bingen , also known as Saint Hildegard, and Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, Benedictine abbess, visionary, and polymath. Elected a magistra by her fellow nuns in 1136, she founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and...
.
In 2001, Routledge starred in Anybody's Nightmare
Anybody's Nightmare
Anybody's Nightmare is a 2001 television film starring Patricia Routledge and Nicola Redmond. It tells the true story of music teacher Sheila Bowler who was falsely arrested, tried and convicted for the murder of her elderly aunt in 1993...
, a fact-based television drama in which she played a piano teacher who served four years in prison for murdering her elderly aunt, but was acquitted following a retrial.
Radio and audio books
Routledge's extensive radio credits include several Alan BennettAlan Bennett
Alan Bennett is a British playwright, screenwriter, actor and author. Born in Leeds, he attended Oxford University where he studied history and performed with The Oxford Revue. He stayed to teach and research mediaeval history at the university for several years...
plays and the BBC dramatisation of Carole Hayman
Carole Hayman
Carole Hayman is an English writer, broadcaster and journalist was born in Kent, and attended Leeds University and the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School...
's Ladies of Letters
Ladies of Letters
Ladies of Letters is a BBC Radio 4 comedy series starring Patricia Routledge and Prunella Scales, based on the series of books of the same name written by Carole Hayman and Lou Wakefield...
, in which she and Prunella Scales
Prunella Scales
Prunella Scales CBE is an English actress, known for her role as Basil Fawlty's long-suffering wife in the British comedy Fawlty Towers and her award-nominated role as Queen Elizabeth II in the British film A Question of Attribution.-Career:Throughout her long career, Scales has usually been cast...
play retired women exchanging humorous correspondence over the course of several years. A tenth series of Ladies of Letters premiered on BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
in 2009.
Having a distinctive voice, Routledge has also recorded and released a variety of audiobooks including unabridged readings of Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights is a novel by Emily Brontë published in 1847. It was her only novel and written between December 1845 and July 1846. It remained unpublished until July 1847 and was not printed until December after the success of her sister Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre...
and Alice's Adventures In Wonderland
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures...
and abridged novelisations of the Hetty Wainthropp series.
In 1966 she sang the role of Mad Margaret in Ruddigore
Ruddigore
Ruddigore; or, The Witch's Curse, originally called Ruddygore, is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy Operas and the tenth of fourteen comic operas written together by Gilbert and Sullivan...
, the title role in Iolanthe
Iolanthe
Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy operas and is the seventh collaboration of the fourteen between Gilbert and Sullivan....
, and Melissa in Princess Ida
Princess Ida
Princess Ida; or, Castle Adamant is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was their eighth operatic collaboration of fourteen. Princess Ida opened at the Savoy Theatre on January 5, 1884, for a run of 246 performances...
, in a series of BBC radio Gilbert and Sullivan recordings. She took part in a studio broadcast of Tchaikovsky's opera Vakula the Smith
Vakula the Smith
Vakula the Smith , is an opera in 3 acts, 8 scenes, by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, his Opus 14. The libretto was written by Yakov Polonsky and is based on Nikolai Gogol's story Christmas Eve . It was written for composer Alexander Serov, who died in 1871 leaving only fragments of an opera on the subject...
(narrating excerpts from the work by Gogol
Christmas Eve (Gogol)
Christmas Eve , literally translated The Night Before Christmas, is the first story in the second volume of the collection Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka by Nikolai Gogol.-Plot:...
) in 1990. In 2006 she was featured in a programme of the 'Stage and Screen' series on Radio 3.
Personal
She has never married and has no children and currently resides in ChichesterChichester
Chichester is a cathedral city in West Sussex, within the historic County of Sussex, South-East England. It has a long history as a settlement; its Roman past and its subsequent importance in Anglo-Saxon times are only its beginnings...
, West Sussex
West Sussex
West Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering onto East Sussex , Hampshire and Surrey. The county of Sussex has been divided into East and West since the 12th century, and obtained separate county councils in 1888, but it remained a single ceremonial county until 1974 and the coming...
. She was appointed OBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
in 1993, and CBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
in 2004.