9. Apr, 2020

And the moral is - He who builds palladian palaces doth not a Palliser make. Or something like that

The plot comes thick and fast in this new historical drama from the pen of that Fellowes who wrote Downton Abbey but as the young hero (little does he know he is but everyone else does) quoths, it is the age of change; of trains, of mills and fine new machinery, of business, of goods transported from here to India and back.  

“Ah, India”, sighs the young betrothed of another, who, by her own account, having only got as far as Ireland, is sorely lacking in the elephants and tigers department.  She’s a rather modern miss, given to striding perkily forth to elude her chaperones and with a remarkable likeness about the eyes to Betty Boop. Her starchy mother, hollow visaged beneath cheekbones built for the long haul of stoical duty which has clearly characterised her life, is determined not to allow her daughter loose from her recent engagement to the dubious John, a cad.  He’s probably going to be a bounder too, I have no doubt of it.

I’m having Sliding Doors moments with the cast, though, having seen the butler and Mrs Builder of Belgravia, mistress of the house, only a night or two previously as Mum and Dad in ‘Friday Night Dinner’.  I keep expecting the butler, always displeased, to exclaim,

“Oh, shit on it!” to a novice footman with a trembling hand who is doing things all wrong when dishing out the braised vegetables.

The plot turns on the seduction of dead Sophia by dead James (another caddish toff) and their secret offspring (the young hero) being later launched, accidentally on purpose, into everybody else’s society by Sophia’s parents.  And lo, he’s quite the flavour of the month. As in any historical drama, there are always folk born on the wrong side of the blanket liable to throw a spanner in the works, and there’s another on the way for cadster in chief, John, if I am not very much mistaken.  In this kind of drama, a roll in the altogether on somebody else’s four poster inevitably leads to the obvious outcome.

It’s all very enjoyable; the characters of the gambling cleric, the related  gentry, the entrepreneurs of all classes, powerful to an extent matrons and the pace of action - all  trotting along neatly in their traces round the carriage walk, doffing their hats to one another. Only I can’t help noticing that social distancing is far from being observed by those promenading in the park who are not from the same household and the servants are definitely fraternising.