Simon Jones (Arthur Dent) is now King George V?!
That’s…hard to picture.
I thought I knew that voice!
I think they had another actor play the King when Lady Rose was presented at Court.
PBS’s Downton Abbey Live will air Aug. 18; check local listings:
https://www.pbs.org/video/downton-abbey-live-preview-dchnt4/
Saw it. Anyone else?
A fitting Series Finale, IMHO, most every one gets their character arcs resolved or on a trajectory to easy resolution, and we get to see royalty (George V & family) visit Downton whilst hijinks ensure, and Granny gets a new foil for her machinations and verbal sparring.
Entertaining, but PLEASE stop the talk of a sequel.
I saw it yesterday. I liked it and was surprised at how many people were in the theater. Without spoiling anything, part of the story was about the conflict between the Downton Abbey household staff and that of the royal family, which had precedence. That was also a plot element of Gosford Park, a film from a while back that was also written by Julian Fellowes.
And I have an etiquette question that even those who didn’t see the movie might be able to address. The trailer makes it clear that the story kicks off with Robert Crawley receiving a letter that the king and queen are to visit Downton Abbey and stay overnight (based, by the way, on a real trip taken by the real-life royals to Yorkshire at this time). It sounds a bit like they’re inviting themselves. That sounds improper. We don’t see the text of the letter, but perhaps it’s phrased delicately, like “We are coming to your area and should like to stay at your estate, if you’ll have us.” And of course he’s not going to say no.
And BTW, this New York Time article (paywall warning) goes into the history of royal visits. They were a big deal but very expensive for the host; perhaps even ruinously so.
…and pretty much un-refusable, from the sounds of it.
Yes, the voice is disconcertingly familiar.
He looks like he put in a bit of bakery time with his personal trainer to get in shape.
We saw this at the Alamo last night, and you’ve about perfectly described the history of the series they put together as a preview. Great fun.
a royal visit was " we’e inviting ourselves for a stay at your place from the 25 t0 the 30th please plan accordingly"a unless you were sick or something like that you didn’t say no and hoped you survived the visit
It was a an actual tactic for a monarch to take up residence at an nobles house they wanted to take down a peg or two or possibly bankrupt just by simply being there a few weeks … one written account of the care and feeding of the king queen and staff listed 30 meals a day for 162 people …
a royal visit was " we’e inviting ourselves for a stay at your place from the 25 t0 the 30th please plan accordingly"a unless you were sick or something like that you didn’t say no and hoped you survived the visit
It was a an actual tactic for a monarch to take up residence at an nobles house they wanted to take down a peg or two or possibly bankrupt just by simply being there a few weeks … one written account of the care and feeding of the king queen and staff listed 30 meals a day for 162 people …
Just got back from seeing it. I thought the whole thing rushed and contrived (although beautiful to look at, of course). The timeline with Tom Branson falling for Miss Smith in maybe 30 minutes of actual acquaintance was unbelievable. I did like Tom giving advice to Princess Mary about her marriage to that cold fish. Anna was still working as Mary’s lady’s maid, but she brought her kid - I missed what they did with the kid while Bates and Anna where working. The footman Andy breaking the boiler on the eve of a visit from the royals makes me worry what he’d do to Daisy if she disobeyed him.And poor Molesley. Open mouth, insert foot.
Altogether too rushed a story. The Great Depression is around the corner. I’d like to see how they fare through that.
StG
Saw it last night and really enjoyed it! The theater was maybe three-quarters full.
I thought it had just about everything that was good about the show and then entertainingly put it right up on the big screen. Everyone got their moment to shine, which can’t have been easy to write. It was good to see Carson return as butler, although I thought Lady Mary didn’t give Thomas as much of a chance as she might have before dashing off to recall his predecessor. Gorgeous sets, music and costumes, of course, and beautiful cinematography showing the English countryside. Glad to see the overbearing royal staff getting their comeuppance.
I half-expected Lady Violet to actually snuff it, having heard that Dame Maggie is kind of tired of DA; of course she got the lion’s share of the zingers. Very glad to have Imelda Staunton show up; she’s always good, although I guessed her character’s secret about ten minutes before it was revealed onscreen (a little odd to think that she’s married to the actor who plays Carson, too). Molesley’s speaking up at table and then actually *curtsying *was a hoot. Interesting to see Thomas have his little adventure in the gay speakeasy (that looked like John Lunn, who wrote the DA theme, as the piano player, but I can’t confirm that on Wiki or IMDB), and making a new friend in the royal household. Good on Tom Branson, too, for not only finding a new girlfriend but saving the King from a dastardly assassin (pretty poor security, I noticed, even for rural England in 1927).
The royal-assassination subplot got me thinking - had the King been killed, Edward VIII would’ve taken the throne a lot earlier (1927 and not 1936). He would surely have been even more immature and pleasure-loving then, even though he hadn’t met Mrs. Simpson yet (that would be in 1931). Made me wonder when, if ever, he would’ve screwed up or even abdicated in that alternate universe.
The movie’s doing well enough at the box office I wouldn’t be surprised - and would be happy - to see sequels. Some rough sledding ahead for those of the great house, though: the Great Depression, appeasement, WWII, heavy taxation and postwar austerity, etc.
In the immortal words of P.G. Wodehouse (Big Money, 1931): “If England wants a happy, well-fed aristocracy, she mustn’t have wars. She can’t have it both ways.”
What might be interesting for a sequel would be for Tom Branson and Henry Talbot’s involvement in the auto business to change from just selling cars to establishing an auto manufacturer. I think there were many small car manufacturers in England (perhaps even until recently). Perhaps they even become rich in the process, showing the shift of fortunes from the landowning gentry (like the Crawleys) to those in industry.
The logical endpoint to such a train of thought is that in Downton XII - (Lady Bagshaw’s Revenge?) we will see that the geriatric and demented last Crawley has pissed his fortune away and that Downton will have to be opened to visitors and leased to actor types who want to use it to film costume dramas.
At this point we will have reached singularity and time will end.
Can’t get all those aristocrats heir machine gunned at the Somme, Ypres or Gaza.
I like it!
Well, I think the main point was that you can’t get the wars paid for without heavy taxes on the ancestral estates, which considerably cramps the aristocrats’ style. The quoted remark is made by just such an impoverished ancestral-estate-owner.
I am aware of that.
The death rates in the artistocacy were horrendous and several titles died out since they no longer had any living male heir.