Saturday & Sundry Thoughts about Downton Abbey

As evidenced by my post of January 2011, Downton Abbey - Julian Fellowes, we watched an episode or two of Downton Abbey when first shown on PBS in the USA. I was not unduly impressed back then, gave the show a wide berth thereafter. When I noticed it now available via Amazon Prime, and having exhausted many other choices of binge-worthy TV series there, and on Netflix, we decided to give Downton another chance.

Perhaps I've mellowed some since 2011. On this sampling I'm enjoying the series, if still feeling a tad scratchy about it in places. After many nightly binges of 2 or 3 episodes a time we've finished season 4 already!

Wikipedia's page on the show has all manner of interesting detail. Among the information there's mention of complaints levelled at various aspects of the production: anti-Irish allegations, anti-Catholicism and some lack of general authenticity. As to the Irish and Catholic issues, I can understand where complainants were coming from, but when depicting a specific period, I guess it's not always possible to be both authentic and politically correct to standards often expected now. As to general authenticity, though, I agree with this:

Fellowes tries to be as authentic in his depiction of the period as he can. Despite this, the show features many linguistic anachronisms. The accents of characters have also been questioned with the Received Pronunciation of the actors who play the wealthy characters described as "slightly more contemporary" than would be expected among early-20th-century aristocrats, however, this "elicited more natural and unaffected performances from the cast."

The servants' accents are reasonably accurate for north of England in general. These servants are not necessarily native of Dowton's surrounding area. I often find, in TV drama, that Yorkshire accents tend to be drawn as from West Yorkshire, a quite different accent from East and North Yorkshire, but I suppose it takes a native to detect the subtle differences. In the USA, I think British accents are heard as all more or less the same: just "English".

The aristocrats in Downton Abbey are smoothed and sweetened versions of the real thing, essentially made palatable for the TV viewers - pleasant enough that their evening glass of ale and fish and chips would not have to be spluttered over. Even Lady Violet, played by the wonderful Maggie Smith, supposedly a class-ridden virago of the first water, is given a warm twinkle to go with her only mildly offensive one-liners.

I commented to my husband while enjoying one of Violet's acerbic exchanges, "I want to be like her!" His response: "But you are dear, you are!"

My main complaint is that, though Downton Abbey and a large part of the action outside of it takes place in Yorkshire, not a single real Yorkshire backdrop is used - at least from what I've read so far. How could that possibly be right? Downton Abbey is supposed to be in North Yorkshire, near to Ripon, Thirsk and York. There's much wonderful scenery in that area, lots of beautiful old towns and villages, numerous grand estates. But no - the writer and producer chose to use houses and backgrounds in the south of England! If that was his plan, or if that became a necessity for whatever reason, why not set the story in the south? I feel particularly miffed about this, being a Yorkshire gal by birth, more especially because many of my own ancestors came from that very area of Yorkshire; most of 'em were servants and labourers to the area's landed gentry and aristocrats, not far removed from Downton's Crawleys. For instance, my maternal great grandfather was a groom at Burton Agnes Hall in East Yorkshire - a beautiful grand old stately home, much older than that used to depict Downton Abbey.

We shall soldier on with the Crawleys and their pals, as far as Amazon Prime allows. Having trudged through World War I, numerous beginnings and endings, lives, loves, adventures and deaths, we've now reached the point, in the mid-1920s, where some aristocrats are losing their palatial homes and brigades of servants - an eventuality bound to put a smile on this particular viewing virago's face!

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?!