It was Routledge’s most famous role in a long, versatile career that also saw her triumph in theatre here and America. Following her training at Bristol’s Old Vic Theatre, she moved from the Royal Shakespeare Company to the National in London and, in 1976, she was picked by Leonard Bernstein to star in his Broadway musical 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. She had previously won a Tony Award for Darling of the Day.
She was twice a memorable monologist for Alan Bennett. In 1982’s A Woman of No Importance, Routledge played Peggy Schofield, an office stalwart who slowly, poignantly, comes to understand how little her colleagues need her. Six years later, her performance in A Lady of Letters (part of the Talking Heads series) as Irene Ruddock, who finds surprising peace in prison after one poison pen missive too many, brought Routledge a Bafta nomination. Born in Birkenhead, she explained to RT why she admired her fellow Northerner Bennett so deeply – “for his observation, his humour and his immense humanity”.
The result was a scene-stealing woman who becomes a celebrity overnight, a larger-than-life figure sharing many traits with Routledge’s later creation Hyacinth Bucket – and what an extraordinary creation she was. In the sitcom by Roy Clarke, who also created Last of the Summer Wine and Open All Hours, Hyacinth never tired in her crusade for social superiority, from hosting candlelit dinners to simply owning “a white slimline telephone with automatic redial”.
With such a simple premise, what made Hyacinth, and the show as a whole, such a magical piece of comedy, loved by fans both in the UK and across the world?
For Cornwell, the first indicator of the show’s quality was how the live studio audience responded. “The first time Onslow and Daisy had to get into bed together, we climbed in and the bed collapsed, accidentally. The audience completely lost it. The studio manager had to calm them down. Pat absolutely loved it when that happened.”
Cornwell remembers how hard Routledge worked, both on Hyacinth’s many lines and also her physical comedy. She remembers: “Often we’d be enjoying a coffee between scenes, but Pat would be going through another scene, always working to make it even better. Everything she did was thorough. She was well-read, she understood every reference. If you did a scene with her, you knew that she’d learnt every line backwards. She was a brilliant person, and a lovely one.”
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