The most precisely-drawn characters on sitcoms are the off-screen ones. They don’t have the benefit of an actor’s portrayal, so it’s all in the writing. Phyllis’s husband Lars on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” for example — we know him, despite never meeting him. It’s always a let-down when a show decides to surface an off-screener. Sort of like when the will-they-or-won’t-they couple finally gets together (which I actually think is fine, but that’s for another installment).
On “Keeping Up Appearances,” the biggest off-screen presence is Hyacinth and Richard’s son Sheridan. (Sheraton?) “He’s at university you know.” Or at an institution Hyacinth has evidently rounded up in poshness to one; my knowledge of the British higher ed system means some of this is over my head. Doing right by Sheridan is Hyacinth’s great purpose in life, the motivation behind all her social climbing and attempted art appreciation. She foists childhood photos of Sheridan on already tortured guests. Richard is less enthralled, wishing his son would study something more useful than “tapestry and advanced needlework.”
Which brings us to The Sheridan Problem: Sheridan is “artistic.” He has a “friend,” Tarquin, also off-screen, who wears silk pajamas. He’s never had a girlfriend. Hint hint, ala Mr. Humphries on “Are You Being Served?”: without it ever being stated outright, Sheridan is gay.
Is Sheridan’s gayness a joke? Should we be concerned?
Progress is not linear but certain things are better than in the past, and yeah it would seem to be an improvement that it’s no longer believed that overbearing mothers and henpecked fathers (Hyacinth and Richard much?) ‘cause’ male homosexuality. Because we are unequivocally in the realm of that trope. Neighbor Elizabeth refers to how Sheridan “never really stood a chance,” with Hyacinth as a mother, and even though what’s meant is not specifically Because Gay, it’s not not that.
There are caveats: It’s clear that Richard, unlike Hyacinth, does realize Sheridan’s gay, but he gives no indication of being bothered by this, and very little of even thinking it needs remarking on. (I think he once tries to initiate a conversation about it with Hyacinth, but he doesn’t seem particularly upset.) He’s simply fed up with Sheridan always asking for large sums of money, and giving no indication of earning any himself. The problem with Tarquin isn’t that he’s a man but that he’s rich and posh, and Sheridan is off Brideshead Revisiting, trying too hard to keep up with that lifestyle.
Then there’s Hyacinth herself, played by Patricia Routledge, who internet forum denizens sometimes ‘know’ is a lesbian, sometimes ‘know’ actually has a male partner, but at any rate has (as I understand it) a kind of lesbian icon status. Does any of this matter? Probably not. More relevant is the whole campiness of the Hyacinth role, and the context of the show, where Sheridan’s sort of the least of what’s going on, ridiculousness-wise.
There’s also brother-in-law Bruce, husband of Hyacinth’s rich (“Mercedes, sauna, room for a pony”) sister Violet, who is into Sex Stuff, in that generalized way sitcom characters (see Donald and Jacqueline from Benidorm) sometimes are. Cross-dressing, kinks, affairs, lewd knick-knacks, he’s all about all of it. Bruce and Violet are also off-screen for much of the series, and should have stayed that way, as they’re funnier as concepts than in-person characters. But the purpose of Bruce on the show is that Hyacinth, for all her stuffiness, is above all a snob, and insists that Violet tolerate Bruce’s predilections on account of his wealth.
This same tendency comes up when Hyacinth finds herself groped and worse by posh men (The Major, primarily) she’s been trying to impress. In those deeply uncomfortable scenes, Hyacinth is slow to rebuff advances because of her eagerness to impress, which in turn blinds her to the fact that these men are men, older and not particularly alluring, and not accustomed to being venerated the way they are from Hyacinth, Hyacinth who thinks anyone who owns a successful small business or is cousins with someone titled must be.
If something nags at me about Sheridan and homophobia, I think it’s less the stereotyping than the sheer unstatedness of his gayness. That which cannot be named. As with the very much onscreen Mr. Humphries in the decades prior, there’s an evident taboo of having an openly gay character, a sign of the times and not a pleasant one. This is very different from a more recent show like “Benidorm,” where there are so many openly gay characters (and still more straight ones, and at three bisexual ones…) that “gay” is never a specific character’s entire shtick.
What’s uncomfortable for The Modern Viewer (moi) is that gayness couldn’t be open in the “Keeping Up Appearances” universe, one well prepared to accept Rose sleeping with everybody and Bruce doing everything. The presence of unstated gayness is the joke, an is-he-or-isn’t-he (he is) nudge that allows the show to speak of homosexuality without requiring (and I suspect this was the behind-the-scenes thinking) parents to explain to their children what it means that Sheridan is gay. It’s family entertainment because that is never spoken aloud.
And yet the show needs Sheridan, because why else is Hyacinth like that? Her character’s motivation is entirely about refinement and betterment and turning her family into something posher than the sum of its origins. Everything she does, she does for Sheridan. Anything uncouth that happens, untoward, it is offensive to Sheridan, who is not present, but principle of the thing. There needs to be another generation, but it can’t be like with Edina and Saffy where you actually meet that generation, because Hyacinth is the whole point.