Right from the start, when Isis - that would be Lord Gramphorn's dog - waddles somewhat obscenely across the lawn, Downton Abbey teeters uneasily on the edge of farce. One feels that the director would have been better advised to choose a frontal view of the mighty mastiff who looks as if she has just fouled the grounds, or is on the point of doing so.
Those members of the cast with artistic pretensions have either already left or are wearing that bemused expression of actors who cannot believe their good fortune in getting paid large sums of money for spouting such third-rate dialogue. They don't even have to learn their lines as each scene lasts no more than 30 seconds.
I suppose there is suspense of sorts. What is Baxter holding back (I'm on episode 2), will Wurzel I mean Carson continue to call Lord and Lady Gramphorn "My Lordship" and "Your Lady" even after the fall of the Ramises Macdonald government, will Lady Mary marry Lord Bellingham, and if so at what cost to life and limb?
And yet, in the hands of a master like Michael Frayn, Downton Abbey could so easily become a masterpiece like "Noises Off". There are not so many people in the cast that it could not be turned into a repertory company touring the country starting, I suggest, in the Faroe Islands and then working its way north.
You've got no soul, you haven't !
ReplyDeleteThough I agree the "plot" lines have always been fairly farcical. Have you got to the bit where her Ladyship recovers from the Spanish flu (spitting blood stage) in approx. 5 minutes?
But anyway - if you view this seriously of course it doesn't stand up. It's the general atmosphere which counts, even when you find yourself throwing cushions at the tv screen at the wrapping up of WW1.
You've got no soul, you haven't !
ReplyDeleteThough I agree the "plot" lines have always been fairly farcical. Have you got to the bit where her Ladyship recovers from the Spanish flu (spitting blood stage) in approx. 5 minutes?
But anyway - if you view this seriously of course it doesn't stand up. It's the general atmosphere which counts, even when you find yourself throwing cushions at the tv screen at the wrapping up of WW1.
I don't know. I still think the script"writers" would do us all a great favour if they could arrange an accident to get rid of the ghastly Lady Mary and her equally ghastly mother. But I fear Isis is next to go.
ReplyDeleteI had hoped the Spanish flu had done for the Countess, particularly as we had the deathbed scene. But no - sigh - up she popped again.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy Lady Mary! Am I the only one? Am taking bets on another "unusual" marriage, this time she and Carson.