Changing Times at Downton || Downton Abbey Special Features Season 6

there's a big sense of the end of an era really in in the nation for houses like this and it's really brought home when we go to visit a friend of ours John who's literally having to sell the family furniture and it becomes really sort of graphic when we when we go to the auction of the contents of his house you're having quite a clean sweep oh we've kept a few portraits to make a decent show in the London house but what's the point of storing the rest this life is over for us he says to Robert Grantham in 20 years there will be a house this size left that isn't an institution and that was the view of a lot of people they thought that was it that was the end Downton Abbey is where the Crawleys belong I hope they'll stay as long as we can but I suppose we all realize it may not last forever oh this is weakling talk thankfully George and I are made of sterner stuff than the lot of you that I'm sure is quite true there were instances where houses were open for charity what they haven't made the connection to and an or of the Grantham's is that this should actually be part of the houses income but Robert doesn't get it they do better taking a train for London and visiting the Tate Robert who is bedridden at this stage since the whole thing is ridiculous and anyway who would want to come and see you know Brown dark dusty pokey you know mansion and of course people do come and there's one of my favorite scenes actually is a tiny little moment where a little boy who's just gone up wandering off left his parents and wanders into my bedroom and we have this rather surreal little conversation about he asked why do you live in such a big house why not buy somewhere comfy you must have enough money maybe but you know how it is but it certainly doesn't occur to him or anyone really that in the future this will become the norm that houses such as ours will be open to the public in fact we'll be the saving grace they originally came because it was the fascination to go and have a look inside a way of life that most people simply couldn't imagine it was a otherworldly and the sixpence would enable people from classes very different from the aristocratic one to get a sense of this scale this drama in which the grand of the United Kingdom lived I was once invited by Lady Carnarvon very lovely to it to a weekend at Highclere Castle and there was this lovely old Dowager who was there and she turned to me at one point I went over the reason Downton is so successful because it's it's as if someone's just looking through our window and I thought well that's so true that that's sort of it is its opening the doors and having a peek in and and that's what's brilliant about that scene on the open house is that they think they all think they're coming just to look around at this old house but actually they're getting a peek into the lives of the Crawleys future robert mama you of all people to win a war of just when we started there have already been two hundred and fifty people working there you know being kind of nice to see the scale of the operation and and to see how it scaled down now you know there's no sort of unemployment benefits of any kind and so if people don't find other work then you know there are there are serious implications to that and the reality of your employment being threatened is destitution really so it will be frightening to be threatened with you know the loss of your job in 20 years time I doubt there's one footman working at Downton the Lady Edith already manages without her own maid and if Anna would believe I doubt that Lady Mary would replace her it's not just you they're seeing this change really affecting them you know for instance some daisy and mrs. Patmore in the kitchen used to have those two plus a scullery maid and it's just the two of them in the kitchen now it's harder with no kitchen maid you know in the kitchen we've lost all the kitchen maids and that's rather major really considering how we started and we do sometimes wonder how we're managing to do all the food Thomas's job is definitely on the line I mean who has an under-butler these days should I start looking for another job how could it hurt at first it's Andy the new footman who came in at the end of last year who's worried about Ann Thomas he's quite a paternal towards him saying I dr. worry you'll be fine post I sneaked on there last in first out you don't know that and then in comforted him he sort of realizes oh oh maybe maybe Andy's right - worried maybe we won't be fine and maybe because he's had such a checkered history it'll be him next its Carson did you know anything about stuff being laid off it's not a subject for the here and now Andy coming into that you know a couple of months ago might thought well maybe in a few decades I might be where Carson is and this this is a really great respected job but actually his longevity in the house probably isn't that long now the younger members of the downstairs family start thinking actually is a life of service the right job for me now I have other other opportunities and should we be retraining looking at other other options and getting out while the goings good so to speak I just wish mr. Mason was settled well if you passed your exams you'll be in a better place to help him maybe people are discovering that they can actually make a name for themselves and make money for themselves and make careers that are theirs without requiring to live in the aristocracy world and serving a family in the US her bliss that is delivered by Downton Abbey hello I believe we're expected of course mr. and mrs. Harding the who's Gwen well she was a housemaid here before the war she gots away to be a secretary now she's having lunch upstairs while we're still stuck down here she's growing up she's becoming socially aware she's becoming educated and she's becoming dissatisfied for herself and the people around her and that sort of bubbles up inside her and keeps spilling out Oh Daisy don't you lose your job and then what Gwen she's thrown off the yoke of service to make a good life what am i doing my mind with Gwen we see what was possible with the ingredients of determination and education and both were always available it was just almost impossible and not expected for anybody who was living within a certain class to ever aspire to do anything outside whatever it was that the houses the Great Houses had to offer seems marvelous to me you leave service go into government now you're married to a prominent man 20th century story you agree welcome back the Gwen has gone off she's become a secretary and she's made contacts and she's obviously had that that burning fire of determination we can't afford to waste working women by not educating them its lucky Carson isn't here tossin Butler he's a traditionalist well I I always tried to write strong women because I think one of the interests of period drama is clearly there were just as many intelligence dynamic women around there as I've ever I mean either those things never change the difference being that they were living under tremendous amount of constraint and so if they would determine to achieve they had to somehow box and cops their way through the rules so that they could get to a place where something could be done not all not by any means all of them were successful but that was what a lot of them were trying to do and that creates a kind of tension in those characters mary is trying to do things that her society doesn't really approve of but she doesn't want to give up society he doesn't want to bother you or his lordship just the agent wait 10 minutes and show him into the library very good m'lady you'll have to manage him I've got some errands to run and I promised I'd meet granny at 11 I want to be left to manage him it's my job yeah she's an aristocrat essentially so she cannot do such things you know people who would turn their nose up she could be you know laughingstock and a social pariahs but but at the same time she's willing to take those risks and that's what I love about her and you've come to discuss it with mr. Branson I know that's not possible m'lady but if you could just tell me who was replaced him hold on to your hat mr. Finch but I'm afraid I have mm-hmm I see I've been working with mr. Branson some years and now I intend to manage myself with his lordship well it's a changing world it certainly is well I think it's very interesting that Cora is always very supportive to their independent lives and very excited by them having lives that have more opportunity and our lives that are completely different to hers brains count for more than muscles long live women's rights and all that but it's not a good idea to take on a job that wears you out we get a sense of how tough it was for women and perhaps we get a sense of why there was this great determination particularly after the first world war when women basically had kept Britain going that they should have that place in the world and both Mary and Edith are proving it's possible and so is Gwen and you're getting a sense of it above stairs and below stairs they found it was a purpose and a job for themselves and that is really hard to let go of and that's something that Edith you know talks about a lot this series which is you know she needs a purpose she needs to have something to do and that's been really wonderful to play and to get this script which is based in 1925 and have a conversation about you know a woman in the workplace and dealing with sexism you know it's incredible so I'm I'm thrilled that Jillian's taking it in that direction the tension between the society in which they were living and what they were trying to do I think makes for good drama I enjoy that I know now I need a purpose that's what I've learned I can't just lead one of those purposeless lives you inspire me ultimately when we met you know Lady Mary and Lady Edith and Lady Sybil at the beginning the story was about who they were going to Wed and settle down with so it feels appropriate that we would tell that as our end not to say that a wedding is at the end of every one's story and journey but you know I think for instance Carson and mrs. Hughes you know everyone's been longing for them to get together since season one end of season five we had that lovely proposal so it's fitting that this season we would have a lovely wedding to go with it and now pronounce you man and wife it is quite a surprise that they offer to hand over their house for a wedding of a member of their staff after all they put their staff in an impossibly complicated position because if you've dedicated your life to upholding the stature of an establishment then it's quite difficult to then undermine the whole purpose of your life by enjoying the fruits of that structure yourself if we take a neutral place and decorate it the way we want and put in the flowers we like it would be about us in a way the Great Hall of don't now be never can be so it's quite a tough thing to ask Carson to do but he accepts it because I think he's very flattered by it he thinks it's such an honor and because mrs. Hughes's somehow more grounded in the realities of wanting to achieve her own identity than he is she desperately wants to go somewhere else mrs. Hughes doesn't Carson deserve a wedding in this house where he has served this family for so long and with such loyalty and will continue to do so well there is breath in his body well then but this is our day m'lady it's about Charles Carson and Elsie Hughes and not about this glorious house or the glorious people who've lived in it just as again it's that that changing of the time the clashing of the two worlds and I think we do that with some other period points as well when there's a there's a we have a sequence where there's a party downstairs here and the family come and join and for me I love those moments where you take the image of the upstairs family who we know so well sitting in the drawing room or the library or the dining room and you throw them into a downstairs environment like a fish out of water and I think violet comes downstairs at one point for the first time in 50 years which is just brilliant has it changed much since your day no to find my way around it's a gorgeous wedding absolutely beautiful yeah the the set looked amazing it's so lovely and I'm sure that many people will host a wedding in exactly the same style for a few years to come it's sort of probably almost closer to what a lot of weddings are like now a sit-down wedding breakfast a bit of a jig afterwards so it's it's nice to see our upstairs family in a very downstairs environment [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: GleePotter8468

Views: 1,173,304

Keywords: hugh bonneville, robert crawley, julian fellowes, alastair bruce, chris croucher, jim carter, charles carson, kevin doyle, molesley, lesley nicol, beryl patmore, robert james-collier, thomas barrow, michael fox, andy parker, sophie mcshera, daisy mason, michelle dockery, mary crawley, elizabeth mcgovern, cora crawley, laura carmichael, edith crawley, chelsie, phyllis logan, elsie hughes, nic collins

Id: _jgPOWbOmjA

Length: 14min 18sec (858 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 11 2018