The Bucket List

Some of you may think I’m a little too obsessed with studio recording dates for sitcoms. It is surely something deeply unhealthy, which makes me look less like a proper TV historian, and more like someone who enjoys wading through irrelevant trivia.

To which my answer is: if Harold Snoad is allowed to do it, then so am I. His book, It’s Bouquet – Not Bucket! (The Book Guild, 2009), is mainly known for his rather pointed remarks about Roy Clarke every other paragraph. But he also has this to say about the fifth series of Keeping Up Appearances in 1995:

“Because of Patricia’s involvement with the series Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, the start date for the making of this series of Keeping Up Appearances had been moved on by six weeks but, in spite of this, the powers-that-be still wanted to begin transmitting the series on the original agreed date, which created quite a few problems. In the past I had always been able to record the episodes (studio-wise) in the order that was the most economical. This was particularly the case when an episode involved additional artistes who would be needed both on location and in the studio, which meant they had to be paid a retainer fee for the period between the two elements – unless they happened to have other work (which, quite often, wasn’t the case).

In the past, to reduce this period – and the relevant payment – as much as possible, I had always planned things so that the studio recordings of these episodes were the first ones that we did when we returned from location filming. This meant that there was as small a gap as possible between the two elements, which saved the BBC a lot of money in retainer fees. Also, in the past, by having quite a few of the episodes fully completed by the date when the series started to transmit, I was able to arrange for them to go out in an order that reduced the chances of the public realising that elements of some of the storylines were shall we say, rather similar… well, all right, repetitive! I was now being forced into a corner where I was only ever going to be one episode ahead of transmission, which made life extremely difficult.”

You will, of course, note that Snoad can’t even get into a discussion about this topic without slagging off Roy Clarke.¹

The question then: is what Snoad says above correct? Was the fifth series of the show really made only one week ahead of transmission? Let’s consult some interesting paperwork and find out. And for extra fun, let’s also go back right to the beginning of the show in 1990, and see exactly how far in advance each series of the programme was recorded.²

Location dates for the pilot: unknown.³
Location dates for the rest of the series: 2nd – 24th September 1990.

The obvious thing to note here, of course, is that the first episode of Keeping Up Appearances was a genuine pilot, shot nearly five months before the rest of the series.

The remaining five episodes were shot exactly in broadcast order, about a month before air. Meaning that the final episode, “The Christening” was recorded after the series had begun transmission. As usual with these situations, you have to wonder whether the cast and crew went into that final recording with any awareness of how the first episode went down with the audience; sadly, Snoad doesn’t mention this in his book.

Location dates for Series 2: 28th March – 10th May 1991.
Location dates for Christmas episode: 29th September – 4th October 1991

A rather more complicated affair than Series 1, although every single episode of the series was recorded before it started airing. It’s clear that the final transmission order has been considered very carefully; it doesn’t resemble the recording order one bit.

It’s worth remembering one of Harold Snoad’s stated reasons for this: to record episodes which had guest actors in both the location scenes and the studio scenes first, in order to reduce retainer fees. There already seems to be some evidence of this in Series 2; “Hyacinth Tees Off” was recorded first, and has four guest actors on both location and in the studio. “A Picnic for Daddy” was recorded last, and has none.

The Christmas episode “The Father Christmas Suit” wasn’t shot as part of the Series 2 block, but was recorded separately; location work was nearly two months after the final studio recording of the main series.

Location dates for Series 3: 5th July – 4th August 1992.

A very different situation to the previous two series. For Series 1, all but one episode had been recorded before transmission. For Series 2, all episodes were done and dusted before TX. But for Series 3, only three episodes had been recorded before the series started transmitting at the start of September.

Also worthy of note: on the 6th, 13th, 20th, and 27th September, the studio audience could choose between going to see an episode of Series 3 recorded… or staying at home and watching a different episode of the show going out on BBC1. Let me tell you, you’d have been far more comfortable at home on your sofa. Those seats are rock hard.

Location dates for Series 4: 3rd May – 16th June 1993.⁸

A fairly straightforward series, with all of Series 4 being recorded before it started airing. Again, the broadcast order really does have nothing to do with the recording order, backing up Snoad’s comments about how thoroughly he shuffled them to make the best impression.

Location dates for ’94 Christmas Special: 27th February – 6th March 1994

The only material shot for Keeping Up Appearances in 1994, and done nine months before Christmas, which was very unusual. Snoad explains:

“As it was not going to be possible to make a series in 1994 because Patricia was heavily tied up with other things – mainly at the Festival Theatre, Chichester – it was decided that we would make a one-off ‘special’ for showing the following Christmas. Because of Pat’s limited availability, this would have to be made in February – the earliest I had ever made a Christmas special!”

Made at the very tail end of February, and mostly in March, but you all know damn well if he’d said March I would have said “Actually, technically it was February”, so I’ll slap myself now and move on.

As for what play Patricia Routledge was in at Chichester: it was The Rivals. This was staged between the 29th April – 23rd June, so she presumably threw herself into rehearsal as soon as she’d finished shooting Keeping Up Appearances.

Location dates for Series 5: 12th June – 6th August 1995.¹⁰

So finally: the series which inspired this article. And here’s where we come to poke Snoad slightly with a sharp stick. As a reminder, here’s what he said about the recording of Series 5:

“I was now being forced into a corner where I was only ever going to be one episode ahead of transmission, which made life extremely difficult.”

And yet three episodes of this series had been recorded in August, before the programme started airing at the start of September… which is an identical situation to that of Series 3, despite Snoad highlighting Series 5 as a unique case in his book!

We can perhaps take a reasonable guess why this particular series stuck in Snoad’s craw. Series 3 was seven episodes long; Series 5 is ten. In other words, Snoad had just four episodes left to shoot when Series 3 started transmitting; he has seven episodes left to shoot for Series 5. I think emotionally, that’s quite a big difference, and probably accounts for his memories focusing on this series. Especially with a Christmas episode waiting in the wings too, which really makes it eight episodes.¹¹

Snoad does do something rather clever here, though, and it’s not something that he mentions in his book. Note that “The Senior Citizens’ Outing” is recorded on the 19th August, and “A Barbecue At Violet’s” is recorded the very next day, on the 20th. At first, I thought this might be a typo in the paperwork, but there’s no obvious mistake that it can really be. I suspect a far more likely scenario is that Snoad deliberately recorded the two episodes on consecutive days, in order to get ahead of transmission by an extra week.¹² Notably, “The Senior Citizen’s Outing” is a full two-thirds location work, and “A Barbecue At Violet’s” is nearly half, making this pair of episodes ideal for this kind of trickery.

Speaking of such shenanigans, Snoad also has the following to say in his book:

“Overall, in this series the episodes had far more location material than ever before. In fact, at one of the studio recordings, we were actually able to make two episodes instead of one because of the amount we had already recorded on location.”

Snoad doesn’t mention which two episodes. But looking at the above list, we can clearly see that the episodes he’s talking about are “A Riverside Picnic” and “The Rolls-Royce”, where the studio recording for both episodes took place on the 10th September. That’s the exact date that the second episode of the series, “The Mayor’s Fancy Dress Ball” was transmitted. Or in other words: Snoad figured out how to get yet another episode ahead early on in recording the series. Which is delightful, and shows what a great, practically-minded producer he actually was. The full facts actually make him look more impressive, not less.

All of which means that Snoad’s claim that the production was “only ever one episode ahead of transmission” isn’t really accurate. When the series starts, he’s a full three episodes ahead of transmission. By the 17th September and the broadcast of “Hyacinth is Alarmed”, he’s four episodes ahead. There’s then a week’s break in recordings on the 24th September, so it drops back down to three episodes, where it remains for the rest of the series.

I will say one final thing, though. Take a look at the recording and broadcast dates for “Country Estate Sale” and “The Boy Friend”. Despite the show having two other episodes that could have been broadcast in their place – “A Barbecue at Violet’s” and “The Rolls-Royce” – Snoad took the hard route, and scheduled two episodes which really were recorded the week before. Making life difficult for himself, just so he can improve the transmission order. Which is fantastic.

I hope you’re all now FULLY SATISFIED regarding the production of Keeping Up Appearances. Now, who’s up for a list of recording dates for Morris Minor’s Marvellous Motors, eh?

With thanks to Millie Storrington.

UPDATE (19/4/24): Added information about dates for the location shooting of Series 5, a footnote about the two studio recording dates for “The Pageant”, and a paragraph near the end about “Country Estate Sale” and “The Boyfriend”.

1. I’m making fun, but I think what Snoad says about Clarke throughout the book has the ring of truth. Your mileage may, as they say, vary. ↩

2. A word about episode titles. There are precisely no episode titles given in either the original broadcast versions of each episode, or the Radio Times. Even the official paperwork simply states “Episode 1”, “Episode 2”, and so on. All the episode titles I use in this article were bestowed upon the show much later on, although most of them are currently used on bbc.co.uk, aside for Series 5, for some reason. I don’t really like using titles which weren’t applied to the episodes originally, but for the sake of clarity I’ve grit my teeth and included them. ↩

3. The shooting dates for the pilot location material are missing from the paperwork, but it was almost certainly March/April 1990. ↩

4. Oddly enough, there is no studio date given in the paperwork for this episode, but we are told the production dates were between the 16th September and the 27th November 1991. It seems therefore likely that the studio date was at some point in November. ↩

5. Also recorded during this session was “Blobby Meets Hyacinth Bouquet in Keeping Up Appearances” for Noel’s House Party, which was transmitted on the 30th October 1993. Go on, enjoy yourself. ↩

6. The paperwork for this episode doesn’t give the studio recording date, but the audience recording spools are dated the 4th July in the BBC’s systems. As this corresponds with a week’s gap with the rest of the recording dates, we can be almost certain it is correct. ↩

7. Again, there is no studio recording date for this episode in the paperwork. But the audience recording spools are dated the 15th August, and this just happens to be exactly a week after the date for “A Celebrity for the Barbecue”, the final episode of the main series recorded. So again, we can be almost certain this is correct. ↩

8. These dates include the material for the Christmas Special “Sea Fever”. In Snoad’s book, he refers to Prince Edward being on board when they shot the episode; he was on the QE2 on the 12th June, well within the main location dates for the series. ↩

9. This is the only episode of Keeping Up Appearances which lists two studio recording dates. The paperwork mentions a “Pre recording spool”, so we can assume that the 30th was a day without the audience, and the 31st was the audience record. Presumably, the stunt at the end of the show was done on the pre-record day. ↩

10. Exact dates for the location shooting on this series aren’t given on the paperwork; we’re merely told “Weeks 24-31”. The dates I’ve calculated should be mainly correct, but perhaps out by a couple of days or so.

    There is extremely minimal location work for the Christmas episode – Snoad reveals in his book that the BBC asked for this additional episode late in the day, and there wasn’t time for extensive location shooting. The short inserts in this episode were apparently recorded in “Week 30”, so within the main location shoot. ↩

11. On no less than six dates this series, the audience has the choice of going to see an episode recorded, or staying home that evening and watching a different episode on BBC1 instead. ↩

12. A check of the dates attached to the audience recording spools back this up entirely; they also state the 19th and the 20th. ↩

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