BBC is just so desperate, says Patricia Routledge: Keeping Up Appearances star says corporation is obsessed with ‘sensational headlines’ after prequel to the hit comedy is confirmed

Veteran actress Patricia Routledge has called the BBC ‘desperate’ for the way it recycles its old comedy shows.

She hit out after it was revealed Keeping Up Appearances is to be brought back for a one-off show next year.

The new version, which has the working title Young Hyacinth, will examine the early life of suburban snob Hyacinth Bucket.

Hyacinth works as a maid in an upper-middle class household in the 1950s as she tries to escape her dysfunctional family.

But Miss Routledge, 86, who played the character in the original series, said the remake was part of the corporation’s obsession with ‘sensational headlines’.

She told the Daily Telegraph: ‘Why are they doing this sort of thing? They must be desperate. Look back at the Seventies and Eighties – Ronnie Barker, Leonard Rossiter in Rising Damp, those four masterly actors in The Good Life.

‘[But] nothing to do with me, let them get on with it – no sitcoms as good as that around today. Is it true they’re remaking Porridge too? Remind me to switch off, please.’

The original series still has a global following and fan mail continues to flood in.

‘I’m big in the Baltic, you know,’ she said. ‘And huge in Zimbabwe. [I get] letters from everyone from small boys to elderly widows.’

Routledge, who was awarded a CBE in 2004, expressed equal astonishment at the BBC’s decision not to commission her recent documentary exploring the life of Beatrix Potter, which was shown on Channel 4.

‘One does wonder what some people up there in Broadcasting House are thinking,’ she said. ‘All they seem to care about is sensational headlines. I suppose if Beatrix Potter had been a less wholesome character with some skeletons in her closet, they might have taken more interest.’

Patricia Routledge as Hyacinth Bucket and Clive Swift as her husband Richard in Keeping Up Appearances