Downton appeal

Period drama’s political paradox

IT IS paradoxical that Yorkshire actor Jim Carter believes that the TV drama Downton Abbey offers comfort to viewers when it, too, is set in a period of political tumult which saw David Lloyd George’s government collapse and Ramsay MacDonald become Labour’s first premier.

Mr Carter, who plays the traditionalist Charles Carson, believes that part of the show’s continuing success can be attributed to series harking back to “a more ordered time” compared to today. It could also due to the fact that politics was not a 24/7 vocation after the First World War in spite of the many societal challenges at the time, including universal suffrage.

And there’s another reason why viewers become nostalgic when watching such period dramas. Because they are set in a bygone, and more reverential age long before current political dark arts became so omnipresent, they also know that they can enjoy some welcome escapism from the B-word.