Patricia Routledge
Dame Katherine Patricia Routledge, is an English actress, comedian, broadcaster and singer with one of the longest career of an entertainer, spanning more than 70 years. She is best known for her role as Hyacinth Bucket in the BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances, for which she was nominated for the BAFTA TV Award for Best Light Entertainment Performance in 1992 and 1993. Her film appearances include To Sir, with Love and Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River.
Routledge made her professional stage debut at the Liverpool Playhouse in 1952 and her Broadway debut in How's the World Treating You in 1966. She won the 1968 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her role in Darling of the Day, and the 1988 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for Candide.
On television, she came to prominence during the 1980s in monologues written by Alan Bennett and Victoria Wood; appearing in Bennett's A Woman of No Importance, as Kitty in Victoria Wood as Seen on TV, and being nominated for the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for Bennett's Talking Heads: A Lady of Letters. She also starred as Hetty Wainthropp in the British television series Hetty Wainthropp Investigates.
Early life and education
Routledge was born in Tranmere, Birkenhead, Cheshire, to Catherine and Isaac Routledge. Her father was a haberdasher. During the Second World War the family lived in the basement of his shop for weeks at a time; nearby Liverpool, headquarters of Commander-in-Chief, Western Approaches and the most important port in Britain, was bombed during the Second World War more heavily than every other British region except London.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 university'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.
Career
Theatre
Routledge has had a prolific career in theatre, particularly musical theatre, in the United Kingdom and the United States. Her vocal range was labelled as a mezzo-soprano and a contralto. She has been a long-standing member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, appearing in such acclaimed productions as the 1983 Richard III, which starred Antony Sher in the title role. 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. She was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her work in And a Nightingale Sang in 1979. A classically trained singer, she has occasionally made forays into operetta including taking the title role in an acclaimed production of Jacques Offenbach's La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein at the 1978 Camden Festival; "As the Grand Duchess she invested every phrase, spoken or sung with wit and meaning, and coloured her tone to express a wide variety of emotions. Never did she resort to the hoydenish behaviour that this role – in British productions at least – seems to invite."Routledge made her Broadway debut in Roger Milner's outrageous comedy How's the World Treating You? in 1966, returning 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 this, 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 U.S. First Lady from Abigail Adams to Eleanor Roosevelt; and a 1981 musical, Say Hello to Harvey – based on the Mary Coyle Chase play Harvey – which closed in Toronto before reaching New York City.
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 a series of Shakespeare in the Park summer events. The show was a hit and transferred to Broadway the following January, with Estelle Parsons replacing Routledge. A DVD of the Central Park production, with Routledge, was released in October 2002. She also performed in Façade at New York's Carnegie Recital Hall.
Routledge won a Laurence Olivier Award in 1988 for her portrayal of the Old Lady in Leonard Bernstein's Candide in the London cast of the critically acclaimed Scottish Opera production. One critic noted "She stopped the show with 'I am so easily assimilated', and her long narration worked on at least two levels – it was both hilarious and oddly moving." She also 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, she portrayed Dame Laurentia McLachlan. 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, the role of Dame Myra Hess in the play Admission: One Shilling in 2011, and Lady Markby in An Ideal Husband at the Chichester Festival Theatre in 2014.
Film and television
Routledge's screen credits include To Sir, with Love, Pretty Polly, 30 Is a Dangerous Age, Cynthia, The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom, Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River, If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium and Girl Stroke Boy.Routledge's early television appearances included a role in Steptoe and Son, in the episode "Seance in a Wet Rag and Bone Yard", as a clairvoyant called Madame Fontana. She also appeared in Coronation Street, and as a white witch in Doctor at Large. Also in 1971, Routledge played Mrs. Jennings in the BBC mini-series production of Sense and Sensibility. However, she did not come to prominence on television until she featured in monologues written for her by Alan Bennett and later Victoria Wood in the 1980s. She first appeared in 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. Routledge was nominated for a British Academy Television Award for Best Actress for the monologue "A Lady of Letters".
In 1989 Routledge accepted the lead role of Hetty Wainthropp in an ITV mystery drama, Hetty Wainthropp: Missing Persons. ITV opted not to pursue a series after the pilot episode, but in 1996 the BBC produced the first series of Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, with Routledge again in the lead role. The show co-starred Dominic Monaghan as her assistant and Derek Benfield as her husband. It was first aired in January 1996, and ran until the autumn of 1998, with one special episode in 1999. Monaghan, who went on to enjoy a Hollywood career, has since credited Routledge as "an amazing teacher" who taught him some "very valuable lessons" in acting.
In 1990, Routledge was cast as Hyacinth Bucket in the comedy series Keeping Up Appearances. She portrayed a formerly working-class woman with social pretensions and delusions of grandeur. 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 despite its ongoing popularity. She wished to pursue other roles as a character actress. During an interview on Australian TV Patricia stated: "I'd much rather people look back and say 'I remember that' than say 'Oh, is that still on?'" Another reason she wished the series to end was that she felt that the writer, Roy Clarke, was rewriting old scripts.
She has also played several real-life characters for television, including Barbara Pym, and, in a dramatised BBC Omnibus biographical documentary of 1994, 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.
Radio and audio books
Routledge's extensive radio credits include several Alan Bennett 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.Radio work prior to 1985 included Private Lives, Present Laughter, The Cherry Orchard, Romeo and Juliet, Alice in Wonderland and The Fountain Overflows.
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 in 1989. In 2006, she was featured in a programme of the "Stage and Screen" series on Radio 3.
Charity work
Routledge is an ambassador for the charity Royal Voluntary Service, previously known as WRVS.Personal life
Routledge has never married and has no children. As of 2008 she resides in Chichester, West Sussex. and regularly worships at Chichester Cathedral., she was a patron of the Beatrix Potter Society.
Honours
Routledge was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1993 Birthday Honours, Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2004 Birthday Honours, and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to theatre and charity.In 2008 Routledge received an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from Lancaster University for her contribution to drama and theatre.
On 15 March 2019, Routledge received an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from the University of Chester at the Chester Cathedral for her contributions to theatre and television.
An honorary president of the Association of English Singers & Speakers, she has sponsored the annual AESS National English Song Prize from 2003 to the present.
Screen and stage work
Film
Television
Stage
Discography
Cast recordings
| Year | Album | Notes |
| 1960 | Follow That Girl | Original London Cast |
| 1962 | Little Mary Sunshine | Original London Cast |
| 1963 | Virtue in Danger | Original London Cast |
| 1965 | Hello, Dolly! | 1965 London Studio Cast |
| 1966 | The Sound of Music | 1966 London Studio Cast |
| 1967 | Androcles and the Lion | 1967 Television Cast |
| 1967 | Kiss Me, Kate | 1967 London Studio Cast |
| 1968 | Darling of the Day | 1968 Original Broadway Cast |
| 1969 | A Talent to Amuse: Noel Coward's 70th Birthday Concert | 1969 Concert Cast |
| 1972 | Cowardy Custard | 1972 Original London Cast |
| 1976 | Cole | 1976 Studio Cast |
| 1985 | I Remember Mama | 1985 Original Cast Members |
| 1987 | An Evening With Alan Jay Lerner | 1987 Concert Cast |
Studio albums
| Year | Album | Notes |
| 1973 | Presenting Patricia Routledge | Re-released on CD in 1996 |