DOWNTO(W)N ABBEY
Christmas 2011
What are we to make of Julian Fellows? He has certainly managed to make
a life for himself so in some way he can claim to live 'in the real
world' even if the world in which he lives vicariously (never thought I
would need to use that word but this seems to need it) is sometimes far
from real.
It is hard to tell if he is pulling our leg sometimes when P G
Wodehouse's most outrageous exaggerations are in comparison obviously
funny yet nearer the truth. I have never seen a pseudo-historical
series with fewer intended laughs than this one. On other occasions
(increasingly rare) the understated but well acted moments give hints
of real insight. There were parts of the first series of Downton Abbey
which caught my attention, with drama, atmosphere and realism. But
Fellows has apparently no idea of how life was really lived in stately
homes that were part of the rural establishment of Britain or elswhere
in Europe in the first half of the 20th century.
They were, if they survived, run as any business is run. The
'upstairs-downstairs' environment portrayed by Fellows with its
exaggerated class-conscious basis may have existed somewhere, but
nowhere I ever came across. Family estates and their staff were in fact
closer-knit as a team than the commercial equivalents. There was indeed
a control and command structure just as there is in business or the
military. It is true that they were 'family businesses' to high degree
as indeed were many commercial enterprises throughout the industrial
and before that the pre-industrial world. It was true that the valet
could not expect to rise to the position of managing director or even
above the status on which he joined; but then this voided the problem
of the Peter Principle kicking in and promotion based on talent and
growing experience was not ruled out. However the level of awkwardness
and potential misunderstanding which Fellows relies on continually to
generate any interest at all from the otherwise turgid characters with
which he populates Downton Abbey is ridiculous, as is the snobbery,
inverted or conventional, exhibited by some of them.
I do not know Fellows, so my impression that he must be an ignorant
pretentious twat is perhaps quite wrong; but one thing we can all agree
on is that the 'hors-de-série' entreact over Christmas was so
boring, predictable and at the same time absurd that most of those who
enjoyed parts of the previous episodes will not bother to tune in
again. Sitting through periods of silence while we watched the faces of
people struggling with their emotions when faced with problems that
anyone with an ounce of character could have dealt with on-the-fly
tells me that Fellows is catering to an era of humourless wimps of
which he is in
danger of being identified. There was never a house in Britain that the
odious newspaper magnate, however rich and influential, would not have
been booted out of by the least senior member of staff without
bothering to get permission from higher authority. That he could have
been tolerated, let alone remain engaged, to a member of the family on
the blackmailing grounds we are supposed to believe is ridiculous.
I can only conclude that Fellows has been allowed, in return for
bringing film-business money to properties in need of maintenance, to
enjoy the company of people who are either anachronistic relics or, far
more likely, taking the piss and taking the money. My apologies to the
actors who do their best, sometimes brilliantly, mostly in the role he
would call 'servants' as indeed they were as this was a tradtion.
Before that they were called slaves. But in 20th Century households and
estates they were staff who held positions just as in any other
business with the exception they were treated more like family, held in
great and mutual respect and the only time for emotional upsets was
when a long-time member had, for good reasons of their own evolving
lives, to leave.
Being fed this sort of stuff, how can the youth of today expect to have
any real idea of the past? Fortunately, after the last offering, they
won't watch it.