Edwardians Everywhere

So Downton Abbey is back for another series.

In the interests of marital harmony, we watch Inspector George Gently ‘live’ whilst we eat supper after church on Sunday night, and I record DA for another time when Bob is busy. I am not too bothered, as I also think Martin Shaw is a great actor, and I can catch up with Hugh Bonneville later.

I really enjoy DA, it is mindless escapism, and just like “Upstairs Downstairs” used to be in its original incarnation in the 1970’s. Gorgeous costumes, lovely settings, good dialogue

And I adore Maggie Smith’s ascerbic lines – I think Julian Fellowes has very successfully crossed Oscar Wilde with Dorothy Parker for some brilliant ripostes and bon mots. No I am not 100% convinced of its historical veracity – but actually I don’t care – it is entertainment!

I know that Benedict Cumberbatch has been very scathing about Downton - fortunately Julian Fellowes has reacted most graciously to BC’s ‘atrocious’ comment [here] It is not really fair of people to compare DA with BC’s current offering of “Parade’s End” The latter is much more demanding- nay hard-going - to watch.

With DA you can nip out to go to the loo, or pop the kettle on, and not miss too much. With PE I find I have to concentrate on every scrap of plotline and dialogue. But I am utterly gripped by it. The story is about a civil servant, Christopher Tietjen [played by BC] and his wife Sylvia [Rebecca Hall]  I confess I have not read anything  by Ford Madox Ford [what a daft name – not his original moniker. At least Jerome Klapka Jerome was saddled with his title from birth] Therefore I do not know if the wonderful lines are from FMF or Tom Stoppard’s adaptation.

Tietjen's comparison of the noise on the Western Front to a "wet canvas being shaken out by a giant" is brilliantly evocative

– and I am still grinning about his wife’s description of her rival, the enthusiastic young suffragette Miss Wannop, as “that scrub-faced ladies champion of the Regular Bowel Movement”

And what a stellar cast- Rupert Everett, Rufus Sewell, Miranda Richardson, Geoffrey Palmer...

The final instalment is tonight [if you didn’t watch the first four, don’t bother with this, it will probably make no sense whatsoever] but thus far I have enjoyed it far more than I expected to.

The BBC’s next costume drama will hit our screens next week – “The Paradise” – but that is set 30 years earlier in one of the first British department stores.

I suspect I shall probably appreciate ITV’s “Mr Selfridge” in the new year a little more. That is another piece set in the Edwardian era. More servants and shopping…

My grandmother was lady’s maid to Lady Gamage – wife of Lord Gamage of Gamage’s – the other big London Department store, situated in Holborn.

Allegedly it was Harry Gordon Selfridge who coined the phrases “Only X shopping days till Christmas” and “The Customer is Always Right”

I suspect I am watching too much TV at the minute! And when not ensconced in the Edwardian Era and WW1, I am stuck in WW2 and its aftermath [The Wartime Farm, and The Bletchley Circle]

What’s your current favourite TV series?