Downton Abbey ~ Julian Fellowes

A new TV drama, Downton Abbey began a 4-episode run in the USA, on PBS, last weekend. I understand that it is currently being shown in the UK too, albeit in a rather longer version. It was thought that American audiences would balk at the UK version's rather more stately pace and emphasis on the archaic law of entail (estate inheritance), quite foreign to the USA. A foreshortened version of the series is fine by me. I can stand a slow-moving tale if written by an icon such as Charles Dickens or James Michener, this is not one of those, so will probably be better taken at a trot!

The series is in fact written by Julian Fellowes, a rather upper-clahhss actor/ screenwriter/director, soon to be a member of the House of Lords on the Conservative Party benches.


In a nutshell, Downton Abbey, set in the early 1900s in Yorkshire, England, tells the story of an aristocratic family who face future problems linked to inheritance laws, following the death of their only son, a passenger on the Titanic. They have 3 daughters but according to the then laws, women were not allowed to inherit an estate.




We are promised tales of love, betrayal, domestic politics, and the challenge of waves of incoming change bringing in feminism, socialism and other -isms which threaten to shatter a class system solidly in place for many centuries.

There are tales from both above and below stairs - the residents above, their army of servants below. The servants have their very own self-created class system, almost as insidious as that of their masters.



With better choice of TV programmes on Sunday evenings I'd have given this one a very wide berth. My husband usually enjoys anything at all from British TV, but I suspected this particular series might baffle him more than somewhat! It doesn't baffle me, it irritates - a lot. I'll probably continue to watch it all the same, at least it's set in Yorkshire, with a few Yorkshire accents (among the servants, of course) so it can't be all bad!

Why does it irritate me? It depicts everything I despise: the class system of Britain as was, the remnants of which survive to this day.

Before I lapse into soapbox mode, better have a look at the natal chart of Julian Fellowes, the series creator (photograph below). He was born in Cairo, Egypt on 17 August 1949, son of a diplomat.

His Leo Sun with 3 personal planets in Virgo nicely describes this actor-cum-writer.
Leo is traditionally the sign of show-biz; Virgo, ruled by Mercury is a writer's sign. I'd bet, too, that at the time he was born Moon was in Gemini, the other sign ruled by Mercury. At noon on the date of Fellowes' birth the Moon was in the last degrees of Taurus, ready to slip into Gemini at around 2.00 PM. Without a time of birth it's not possible to establish a rising sign or midheaven, which is a pity. I'd not be a bit surprised to find Leo rising....second choice, Taurus.




According to an October 2010 article in The Mail Online, "Julian Fellowes insists he's no snob... but would never dream of wearing jeans to lunch"
As to snobbery, the reader must draw their own conclusions - as I have done (wink).

Excerpt:

Now, the couple’s parties — often including world-famous actors and European aristocracy — are legendary. And it’s all good fun, so long as the rules are obeyed.
‘Julian doesn’t like jeans to be worn at lunch,’ says one guest. ‘His view is that casual clothes are acceptable, but jeans are always a no-no.

‘And if he’s denouncing some politician, or expounding on why the Falklands’ airport should be named after Louis XV’s mistress, you won’t get a word in. You have to hold your hand up and wait for permission to speak. Even his wife does this. Not that Emma is downtrodden — she’s the great-great-niece of Lord Kitchener of Khartoum.

.........‘Julian’s also superstitious. He won’t have 13 round the table. Once, their son Peregrine — now 19, and the godson of Princess Michael and Sir Anthony Hopkins — came home unexpectedly and would’ve been the 13th guest. He was made to eat in his room.’ And Emma is just as careful of social nuances. She reads all her husband’s manuscripts for errors. ‘Julian got a ticking off for a gaffe in one of his books,’ says a friend. ‘He described a marchioness wearing a silk dress at Ascot.

Emma told him, “Everyone knows you go to the designer Tomasz Starzewski

Snobs or not, manners do seem to obsess the couple. Julian once spent an interview demonstrating how socially inept it was to grasp one’s knife like a pencil, while Emma described the signs she uses to spot the nouveau riche. She said that the soup course was an unfailing test, and admitted she and Julian did award black marks afterwards if they spotted someone tipping the soup plate towards them.

And then there’s a right and a wrong way to leave the table. ‘I would hope never to judge somebody because they folded their napkin after dinner,’ Emma says. ‘But I’d never pretend I didn’t notice. Isn’t that awful?’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1322707/Downton-Abbey-creator-Julian-Fellowes-insists-hes-snob.html#ixzz1AgB9VzeJ

It's hard to differentiate between fact and Downton Abbey, is it not?!