Keeping Up Appearances is one of the best-loved British sitcoms and has now been seen in more than sixty countries around the globe, with a particularly huge following in the USA. The show, originally broadcast on the BBC from 1990 to 1995, starred Patricia Routledge as the unforgettable Hyacinth Bucket pronounced 'Bouquet!' the incorrigible snob whose desperate attempts at social climbing always end in disaster and humiliation.

Throughout the sitcom's five series (plus four Christmas specials), the producer and director was Harold Snoad, whose directing credits already included such classics as Dad's Army and The Dick Emery Show. In this hugely entertaining memoir of the series, Snoad takes us behind the scenes and into the hurly-burly world of TV production - from location shooting in the city streets of Britain's Midlands and the glamorous lounges of the QE2, to the daily grind of schedules and rewrites and the shenanigans and foibles of the actors ...

Witty and revealing, the 224 pages of It's Bouquet - Not Bucket! offer both an exclusive insight into a great British institution - the situation comedy - and a comprehensive guide to one of its greatest examples, Keeping Up Appearances, with full plot synopses, cast lists and locations. Like the series before it, it's a book that looks set to gain its own band of avid admirers.

First published: Thursday 26th November 2009