The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Review
VICTORIA COREN MITCHELL HOW I SEE IT
In these dire times, only one thing can restore the nation’s peace of mind – bring back ‘Downton Abbey’!
Afew months ago, I took part in a radio discussion with Jo Bunting, the producer of Have I Got News For You, about whether or not Mick Jagger is sexy.
“There’s nothing sexy,” said Jo, “about constantly having to say to your partner, ‘Have you fathered another secret child today?’ when all you want is a relaxing afternoon going round a National Trust property. I bet you could do that with Paul McCartney.”
This may explain why Mick Jagger gets stuck with those very young girlfriends. He simply can’t attract people who have discovered the National Trust. Anyone over 40 is suspicious: he doesn’t look like a man who’d put the time in at Corfe Castle.
And yet… perhaps you’d be surprised. Last week, in news so significant it was reported on the Today programme, we learnt that Mick Jagger is a big fan of Downton Abbey – that wonderful, no-expense-spared celebration of the British desire to snoop round opulent houses. Without it, Mick can’t get no satisfaction.
Let’s face it: who isn’t a fan? A trip to see the film version a couple of nights ago reminded me how much I’ve been missing it, and what a gap was left in the TV schedules by its departure.
Ah, Downton Abbey, the drama which moved so fast, an episode could begin with the outbreak of the Great War and end with a Stormzy concert. That series was what the British do best. Slamming the absurd divisions of society into the face of its exhausted population. With beautiful backdrops, mouthwatering banquets, audacious plot twists, a healthy shot of deliberate comedy and some of the nation’s greatest actors doing some truly fine work, it was sometimes daft but never less than massively enjoyable.
Last week, I wrote about my fear that we’re suffering from an overdose of reality. Everybody’s got an anxiety disorder these days. Of course that’s partly about the new acceptability (or fashionability) of discussing “mental health issues”, but, in a world where every disaster is blasted immediately into your consciousness through the mobile phone, with ghastly imagery and graphic witness statements, it’s no wonder our peace of mind is shot to hell. You’d have to be a sociopath to sleep soundly.
The antidote would be more Downton on the telly. Gleaming silver, groaning larders, romping footmen. Gleaming larders, groaning footmen, romping silver. Dining rooms so vast that if you want to pass someone the salt at dinnertime, you have to set off at breakfast.
The cinema is all well and good but we need this stuff returned to us on a weekly basis, beamed directly into our own hovels. It’s not just entertainment, it’s therapy.
According to Hillary Clinton’s memoir, she binge-viewed Downton after the last US election.
That’s what I call comfort: this is the show you watch when you’ve just found out people reckon you’d be a worse president than Donald Trump. (The Duchess of
Cambridge is also a big fan. Probably more of a busman’s holiday for her.) So why are we expected to limp on without it?
I know what you’re thinking: we’ve got Sanditon! But, for me, Sanditon’s got too much plot. I get lost. Downton has always been very plotty, I admit, but it has a wonderful habit of setting up a huge problem in one scene then solving it immediately in the next. They used to do that on the first series of Dallas, before cliffhangers were invented. Very easy on the brain.
The other problem with Sanditon’s plotlines is that, although there are some very good performances in the mix (Kris Marshall is excellent, for example), there are some who are not quite as different from each other as they might be, which doesn’t help when it comes to following the story.
Nevertheless, it certainly helps lighten our reality overload. And full marks for mise-en-scene: lots of terrific houses, especially Lady Denham’s stately. It’s so authentic, I keep expecting a tour party to wander through shot looking for the tea-room.
I wouldn’t want to live in one of these houses, you understand. Imagine cleaning it! I have a hard enough job remembering to wipe the vegetable drawer. Anyway, it can’t be a brilliant life because real heirs always turn into drop-outs and crack addicts.
I wouldn’t mind going on a shooting weekend. I like the idea of waking at dawn, kitting myself out in tweeds, heaping a plate with kedgeree, filling a hip flask, loading up in the gun room, striding out across the moor, tripping over a stile and blasting a minor member of the aristocracy in the kidneys. But I wouldn’t want that life fulltime. It isn’t envy that keeps me looking at depictions of it, but genuine delighted fascination – like I love looking at giraffes but I wouldn’t want to be one.
So, more country house dramas on ITV, I say! Balm for our beleaguered brains.
Meanwhile, if you want to take a closer look at Lady Denham’s house, the role is played by glorious, 17th-century Dyrham
Park in Gloucestershire. (Not to be confused with Dyrham Park golf club in Barnet, though that also looks fabulous.) It costs £13.50 to go round.
Or, on selected dates this autumn, you can do a “Real Lives and Film Sets” tour of Highclere Castle (Downton) for £125. But it’s probably free if you take Mick Jagger.
We need Downton returned to us on a weekly basis, beamed direct into our hovels