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Upstairs and Downstairs
British Costume Drama Television from The Forsyte Saga to Downton Abbey
Editors:
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Publisher:
2014
Summary
The international success of Downton Abbey has led to a revived interest in period dramas, with older programs like The Forsyte Saga being rediscovered by a new generation of fans whose tastes also include grittier fare like Ripper Street. Though often criticized as a form of escapist, conservative nostalgia, these shows can also provide a lens to examine the class and gender politics of both the past and present.
In Upstairs and Downstairs: British Costume Drama Television from The Forsyte Saga to Downton Abbey, James Leggott and Julie Anne Taddeo provide a collection of essays that analyze key developments in the history of period dramas from the late 1960s to the present day. Contributors explore such issues as how the genre fulfills and disrupts notions of “quality television,” the process of adaptation, the relationship between UK and U.S. television, and the connection between the period drama and wider developments in TV and popular culture. Additional essays examine how fans shape the content and reception of these dramas and how the genre has articulated or generated debates about gender, sexuality, and class.
In addition to Downton Abbey and Upstairs, Downstairs, other programs discussed in this collection include Call the Midwife, Danger UXB, Mr. Selfridge, Parade’s End, Piece of Cake, and Poldark. Tracing the lineage of costume drama from landmark productions of the late 1960s and 1970s to some of the most talked-about productions of recent years, Upstairs and Downstairs will be of value to students, teachers, and researchers in the areas of film, television, Victorian studies, literature, gender studies, and British history and culture.
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Bibliographic data
Copyright year
2014
ISBN-Print
978-1-4422-4482-5
ISBN-Online
978-1-4422-4483-2
Publisher
Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language
English
Pages
298
Product type
Edited Book
Table of contents
ChapterPages
Contents No access
Foreword No access
Acknowledgments No access
Introduction No access
1 Pageantry and Populism, Democratization and Dissent No access
2 History’s Drama No access
3 “It’s not clever, it’s not funny, and it’s not period!” No access
4 “It is but a glimpse of the world of fashion” No access
5 Never-Ending Stories? No access
6 Epistolarity and Masculinity in Andrew Davies’s Trollope Adaptations No access
7 “What Are We Going to Do with Uncle Arthur?” No access
8 British Historical Drama and the Middle Ages No access
9 Desacralizing the Icon No access
10 “It’s not the navy—we don’t stand back to stand upwards” No access
11 Good-Bye to All That No access
12 Upstairs, Downstairs (2010–2012) and Narratives of Domestic and Foreign Appeasement No access
13 New Developments in Heritage No access
14 Experimentation and Postheritage in Contemporary TV Drama No access
15 “Why don’t you take her?” No access
16 The Imaginative Power of Downton Abbey Fan Fiction No access
17 This Wonderful Commercial Machine No access
18 Taking a Pregnant Pause No access
19 Homosexual Lives No access
20 Troubled by Violence No access
Index No access Pages 287 - 292
About the Editors and Contributors No access Pages 293 - 298
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