Why I Watch Downton Abbey

The Dowager Duchess of Grantham

...and it is not because of the pious sounding name! I was not looking for a prayer based sojourn with the likes of Sister Wendy and Roger Royle, so there has be another reason.

Those nearest and dearest to me know how I feel about costume dramas. I typically find them prissy, self-important and performed by a breed of actor that normally irritates me no end (I am aware that some would have similar opinions of the costume-drama of Anglo-Catholic liturgy, ironically). With the exception of dramas based on historical events (The Tudors, Charles II with Rufus Sewell, Henry VIII with Ray Winstone, Blackadder) and anything with Natalie Dormer in it, I just don't like period dramas. No!

The thing is, I have rather taken to Downton Abbey, a story about the current residents of a very nice pile in Berkshire - the jolly decent but wholly benign Lord Grantham, the malevolent crone played excellently by Dame Maggie Smith and the whole "upstairs, downstairs" thing. I rather like it. I even look forward to it. Yes. 

How has this happened? 

I'll tell you how. Gladiator TV. 

With the exception of Downton Abbey, Soap Operas, the News, Top Gear and Adam's flippin Farm - the only other television available to the British public falls under the heading I like to call "Gladiator TV". The format is very simple:

 - Take a group of unknown but zany people/all-but-forgotten former celebrities

 - Give them a task [singing, dancing, ice-skating, bug-eating, self-flagellation, a time in a camera decked glass domicile]

 - Let us, the willing public, weed them out week by week for a measly £1.03 per call (mobile tariffs may vary) as they compete against one another and outrageous fortune

 - Observe their breakdowns and gel-underwritten hairdos

 - Note, with alarming frequency, how much it 'means everything' to them, or is 'the most important thing in the world' to them (forgetting of course the fruits of their loins who must once have been important)

 - Subsidise Simon Cowell's personal ownership of Earth

 - Forget who won after a fortnight (mostly because the next spectacle has begun or because the individual/group that Lord Cowell favoured got the Golden Goose anyway, sod the winner)

Are you not entertained? Are you NOT entertained!

After a hard day working the land, a man needs to relax in front of his television - I should know! (I have only the right to speak for men, and I am sure that ladies work hard too). The thing is, if you find an overwhelming distaste for Gladiator TV the only avenue open to you is simple: you have to like Downton Abbey or simply burn the TV in a fit of commercialist sacrificing on ones primped lawn. It's a simple fact that  for people like me, it is adapt or die! 

The Propagation of The Deathly Hallows

During the globally-warmed episode of snow and frozen tundric conditions that have assailed my little market town, I have found myself once again in the grips of a considerable sojourn. This has placed me in my house for extended periods of time, with a need to fill time for me and the ankle-biters. Some of the time, we have built a globally-warmed precipitation person, and at other times, we have watched the goggle-box. 

This weekend reminded me of something that  has troubled me on various occasions during the year, but which had been cast off the radar screen in favour of the next battle-royal with Twins Aculae and their domestic routine. After being forced to sit and watch Annie [Tomorrah, Tomorrah, Eyell Luvv Ya Tomorrah - bleh], I fast discovered that it was succeeded by the magnum opus that is Deal or No Deal. If you are unfamiliar - it is a quiz show; well, not even that. Some people open boxes and win cash depending on the numbers in said boxes - simple as that. It has an audience, which numbered four more this weekend, because we were imprisoned by a globally-warmed two-foot of snow and my creative juices had all but dried up.

Then something happened which upset me all over again. Its contestant of the day, a lovely girl I am sure, approached the place where she would be called to make her choices about boxes to open, and as often happen, was asked a little about herself. Then it happened. It happens in lots of places I have noticed, not just here. After a sentence, she got weepy and confessed to millions that she had fought and won cancer. Lots of weeping, spurious hugging from strangers, game commenced, she won twenty-grand. 

I am a very sympatheic human being. I am married to woman who lost two of her closest friends to cancer before any of them were old enough to vote. I have lost relatives of my own - rather a lot I think given the size of my family. I work alongside those who are dying or are facing that prospect - and I know how devastating and overwhelming it can be. I feel some flavour of their pain, and I even cry for them in private at times. I am not a cold-hearted soulless monster, but yet I am upset by the narrative delivered in the context of my mindless Sunday afternoon-in-the-snow TV. 

As I have said before, this seems to happen a lot. Once, a telly-contestant would tell a whacky story about meeting Rolf Harris (I met him once), or a daft anecdote about the dog dancing with the cat. Then you would go on to dance with chance and win a teasmade. Not now - it seems that the producers need tear-jerkers not whackos for their programmes, and I can almost imagine the application forms now. I do not doubt for one moment that all of these people are genuine and have fought and won against the worst of things, but I question the place of that account in a mundane quiz show. How are we meant to be left feeling? Why was that story just told? I try hard to fight my own battle with the niggling sentiment that it is the Tellyland's new weapon of choice to win ratings, but I am gently losing.

I think this speaks of time and place. Family time TV quiz shows are not a time, I would argue, for a woman to break down after being invited quite deliberately to tell her story of her fight with cancer. My kids don't understand why she is crying, and I am not equipped to explain why. She is on that programme to win some unearned cash - bottom line. Let's not convince ourselves that it is anything else.