For Anglophiles who buy dvds....

My pay-for site had a mini-series all of a sudden without fanfare. Seven episodes. It's called Downton Abbey. After seeing that Maggie Smith, ( the incomparable) was in it, had to take a look and got sucked into it, it was fascinating

The late Robert Altmann has lasting influence. His film 'Gosford Park' was extraordinary. Making a 'Krimi' into a study of mores and social strata of British society. It focussed on the people who ran an English manor, and the aristocrats were more or less the dress-up dolls who were fairly irrelevant.

Downton Abbey took a lesson, and sort of changed the balance.... sixty per-cent 'downstairs', forty 'upstairs'. I found it fascinating. It begins with the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, and ends with the outbreak of WWI in 1914. There is an issue about inheritance, as the Lord of the manor doesn't have a male heir, but three daughters.

But mostly, it is about the people 'downstairs'. And they harbour a villain and villainess the likes of which I hadn't seen before. A lady's maid with so much resentment she could curdle you with her smile. And a footman with ambitions and without morals, you want to smash his face. Dickensian.

Everyone has a 'sneakret'. The themes are social inequality, the rise of socialism and the suffragette movement, and nothing is out of balance, as some of the 'upstairs' people are aware that their time is over, and help others.

I won't put any spoilers in here. But suffice it to say that Maggie Smith is a wonder as Dowager Countess. That woman never makes a wrong move. Hard and calculating on the one hand... and able to move on as far as she can. Pride, and in the end, very funny. Beginning with holding up her fan to 'protect' herself from 'new-fangled electric lights' and what they might emanate.... which so reminded me of a Thurber story.. . to being sceptical about what good a 'telly-phone' was for. And in every segment, she would drop a dead-pan line so excruciatingly funny, I'd bust out laughing from the heart. And I don't laugh much any more, Preciousses.

I will always regret not having seen her in a play called 'Lettice and Loveage'. Peter and I saw it with top actresses in Vienna, and I could only shrug and think, 'Whaaa? She got a Tony for THAT'????' However.... the last act was so funny, we saw a production in Graz. And the Viennese version was cut to shreds, turns out. Seemingly no cuts in Graz, and it was 'oh WOW... now I understand'. It wasn't comedy, it was devastating. A totally different play.

Peter was impressed, but had a problem, because the acress playing the Maggie Smith role was one of his sworn enemies. They went waaay back. When he was star-struck, and had his first serious affair with a young actor who was so handsome, I never figured out what he'd see in me.... He died of leukemia. But she'd made his life a living hell.

Whatever, after seeing it her, I walked out shell-shocked, and said I'd never seen Gerti so good... she'd made my eyes leak. And he begrudgingly said, 'That was the best I've ever seen her.' And it cost him something to admit that.

So I got a close approximation.

Whatever, obtaining the DVD of Downton Abbey would be worth the money. It is suspenseful. Interesting. And the production values are top-notch. It's rich in narration, and worth seeing. I hope there will be a second season.