Creator:Julian Fellowes
Cast:Maggie Smith, Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern and Dan Stevens headline the remarkable ensemble cast
Not since the 1981 Mini-series Bridesheads Revisited has a show generated a following like Downton Abbey. Bridesheads Revisited was my first introduction to the BBC productions as part of “Great Performances”. (Thank you Ms. Gail)
The Second season of Downton Abby has commenced, on “Masterpiece theatre”. I had the pleasure of screening the second season before Christmas and it was all together fine, more over, I was stomping for pure joy. The “brrilliyant” show took home six Emmys last fall: best miniseries, best writing and directing, best costuming and cinematography, as well as best supporting actress for Maggie Smith, who plays the dowager countess with toplofty spunk, beguiled with mere mortals. The entire ensemble cast delivers to the mark with great aplomb.
The series is written by Julian Fellowes, known, perhaps, as an actor in productions such as “Monarch of the Glen,” and “Shadowlands.” But Fellowes is also an Oscar-winning screenwriter (Gosford Park, Young Victoria), most distinguished for the film Gosford Park an “upstairs-downstairs” mystery directed by Robert Altman.
“I think we love it because it is not vulgar - its elegant the clothes lovely, the house fantastic, and a lot of the gentry looked after their servants, everyone had a place and everyone knew their place - and above all its English and England at it's very best…….I loved every single moment, the beautiful surroundings, the costumes, the characters, the plots, the dialogue... the best thing on TV for decades and Dame Maggie Smith is just wonderful, a true national treasure and the writing for her has been a total joy. Ok some things have been a little hard to believe but hey, it's not a documentary so just enjoy and suspend disbelief” mentioned Fellowes in an interview.
The first series is set during the late Edwardian era. The first moment of the series is the news that RMS Titanic has sunk and its effect on the aristocratic Crawley family. The Action revolves around the fictional estate of Downton Abbey in North Yorkshire and features an exceptional ensemble cast. The second series covers the years 1916 to 1919 assailing the Crawley family and their retainers with World War I and all the social changes that swept in with trench warfare.
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| Laura Carmichael , Jessica Brown Findlay and Michelle Docker |
The Christmas special covers the end of 1919 to the beginning of 1920. Yes, give thanks to the deities of media that there is a third series yet to come. This story fills a need that is lacking in American television a story about people, a great night time series. Our reality has become mundane and insipid; who dances with whom and how much weight have you lost.
The setting, the people “And I think it’s the combination of Julian Fellowes’ outstanding writing, written in a very contemporary narrative, with original stories, with this extraordinary ability (of his) to spin 20 spinning plates all at the same time.
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| Elizabeth McGovern as Countess of Grantham |
It's very modern, contemporary storytelling, but in a period setting. And I think audiences love this sort of social interaction, the way that these people lived under a different code from the way that we live now, the manners and the rules” says producer Gareth Neame.
We want to be delivered out of our information inundated lives to a simpler time, when the telephone was new and did not tether us and yes, a gentleman dressed for dinner.
Enjoy the ever so brief respite ……… Cheers
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