Patricia Routledge

Routledge has had a long 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 (RSC), appearing in such acclaimed productions as the 1984 Richard III, which starred Antony Sher in the title role.[9][10] Her West End credits include Little Mary Sunshine,[11] Cowardy Custard,[12] Virtue in Danger,[13] Noises Off,[14] The Importance of Being Earnest,[15] and The Solid Gold Cadillac,[16] 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,[17] 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."[18]

Routledge made her Broadway debut in Roger Milner's comedy How's the World Treating You? in 1966, returning in the short-lived 1968 musical Darling of the Day,[19] for which she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, sharing the honour with Leslie Uggams of Hallelujah, Baby![20] 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;[21] and a 1981 musical, Say Hello to Harvey – based on the Mary Coyle Chase play Harvey (1944) – which closed in Toronto before reaching New York City.[22]

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.[23][24] 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.[25]

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.[6] 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."[26] She also played the role of Nettie Fowler to great acclaim in the 1993 London production of Carousel.[27] In a 2006 Hampstead Theatre production of The Best of Friends, she portrayed Dame Laurentia McLachlan.[28] In 2008, she played Queen Mary in Royce Ryton's play Crown Matrimonial.[29] More recent work includes the narrator in The Carnival of the Animals with the Nash Ensemble in 2010,[30] 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.[31]

Since 2019, Routledge has toured with a show entitled Facing The Music. The show features insights into her musical theatre career.[32]

Routledge's screen credits include To Sir, with Love (1967),[33] Pretty Polly (1967),[34] 30 Is a Dangerous Age, Cynthia, The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom,[35] Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River (all 1968),[36] If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (1969) and Girl Stroke Boy (1971).

Routledge's early television appearances included a role in Steptoe and Son, in the episode "Seance in a Wet Rag and Bone Yard" (1974), as a clairvoyant called Madame Fontana. She also appeared in Coronation Street (1961),[37] and as a white witch in Doctor at Large (1971). Routledge played Mrs. Jennings in the BBC mini-series production of Sense and Sensibility (1971). 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 A Woman of No Importance, the second installment of Bennett's anthology, Objects of Affection in 1982.[38] She then played the opinionated Kitty in Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV in 1985. She performed two further monologues in Bennett's Talking Heads in 1988 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 a 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.[39]

In 1990, Routledge was cast as Hyacinth Bucket in the comedy series Keeping Up Appearances.[40] She portrayed a formerly working-class woman with social pretensions (insisting her surname be pronounced "bouquet") and delusions of grandeur (her oft-mentioned "candlelight suppers").[41] 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,[42] and she was later nominated for two BAFTA TV Awards in 1992 and 1993. Routledge left the role in 1995, despite the series' ongoing popularity, as she wished to pursue other roles as an actress. During an interview on Australian television, Routledge said: "I'd much rather people look back and say 'I remember that' than say 'Oh, is that still on?'" Another reason she wished to leave the role was that she felt that the writer Roy Clarke, was "rewriting old scripts".

Routledge 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.[43]

In 2001, Routledge starred in Anybody's Nightmare, a fact-based television drama in which she played Sheila Bowler, a mother and piano teacher who served four years in prison for murdering her elderly aunt, but was later acquitted following a retrial.[44]

In 2016, Routledge presented Beatrix Potter with Patricia Routledge on Channel 4, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Potter's birth.

In January 2023, Channel 5 aired a 67-minute special Keeping Up Appearances retrospective for their series "30 Years Of Laughs". Cast, crew and celebrities paid tribute to the show. The documentary featured an interview with Routledge, who was 93 at the time, sharing her memories of the show, along with supporting cast members Judy Cornwell, Jeremy Gittins and David Janson.[45]

In 1966, Routledge 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.[46] She took part in a studio broadcast of Tchaikovsky's opera Vakula the Smith (narrating excerpts from the work by Gogol) in 1989.[47] In 2006, she was featured in an episode of the Stage and Screen series on Radio 3.[48]

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.[49] A tenth series of Ladies of Letters premiered on BBC Radio 4 in 2009.[50]

Radio work prior to 1985 included Private Lives, Present Laughter, The Cherry Orchard, Romeo and Juliet, Alice in Wonderland and The Fountain Overflows.[25]

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.[51]