Upstairs Downstairs: We meet the stars of the Christmas TV treat
BBC One has dusted off and revamped the Seventies classic Upstairs Downstairs for Boxing Day, and we got a chance to find out all about it.
In this show the fates of the servants “downstairs” and their masters “upstairs” are intimately linked, making for some cracking drama.
The new series takes up the story only six years on from the original — 1936-38 — with Rose Buck, played by Jean Marsh, now housekeeper at 165 Eaton Place, still a bridge between the past and the future.
In reality Marsh is now 76, having aged more than 30 years since she last appeared as Rose.
Questions of how she was going to pull off the same character buzzed around our head as we travelled to Cardiff to meet the stars, including Jean Marsh, Keeley Hawes, Claire Foy and Anne Reid, on set of the new show.
Rose is the only character surviving from the original version, which was actually shown on ITV. The master of the house is now Sir Hallam Holland, played by Ed Stoppard (son of playwright Sir Tom), with Keeley Hawes playing his glamorous wife, Lady Agnes.
As soon as we arrived at 165 Eaton Place it felt like we’d been transported back to the Thirties — from the fully stocked larder, to the linens hanging in the laundry room downstairs and the gold ornaments and tiger-skin rugs displayed upstairs; the details were just perfect.
Set dresser Eve Stewart told us: “We’ve been very loyal to the original.” She said the hardest thing to find to recreate the look was “light bulbs from that period.” And she explained as the programme will air in HD everything has to be “absolutely real.”
As we settled down for a cup of tea with the legendary Jean Marsh she mused: “I wasn’t sure if I should be doing this or if I was being disloyal to the past.
“It made such a difference to my life, I was put up three runs of the ladder, that wouldn’t have happened if the cast hadn’t of been so good.”
Speaking about her obvious aging since the Seventies series she pondered: “I wonder if our viewers will take on the new and lose the old in their head.”
There are lots of things in the new Upstairs Downstairs to distract from the fact Jean has developed a few more wrinkles.
Written by Heidi Thomas, the writer of Cranford, this revisiting has a fantastic script and cast — including three real monkeys.
We caught up with the wardrobe designer who gave us a sneak peek at the cast’s costumes. This may be a BBC production but no expense was spared when it came to getting the characters clothes just right for the period and their personalities.
One pair of shoes was specially made at the cost of £350, in fact a lot of the clothes had to be specially made for the characters, she explained: “Agnes was given pale creams, and Eileen Atkins was given eccentric clothes and colours because she’s from India.
“It was a journey with Eileen about how far we could go, she needed to be full of fun, with texture and colour. We had dresses made out of saris. ”
We had a tour of the house and set and after deciding we’d much prefer the luxury and glamour of upstairs than downstairs we got a chance to speak to the rest of the cast.
Ashes to Ashes star Keeley Hawes, who plays Lady Agnes Holland, explained a bit about her beautiful and aristocratic character: “Lady Agnes is really delightful and optimistic she’s really wonderful, she’s completely in love with her husband she’s a woman of her time. They’ve come back from Washington and they’ve repaired this house which is falling down.
“They’re childless, which is something they’ve found difficult, and she’s thrown all her energy into being a good wife and being ambitious on behalf of him she’s just a delight and I love her.
“She’s not a feminist she’s very happy to be by her husband’s side. She’s a bit of a SamCam.”
Speaking about her fellow cast members Dame Eileen Atkins, who plays Maud Lady Holland, and Jean Marsh, she said: “I loved every minute of both of them, Jean and Eileen; I learnt a lot from them. I do think it’s a very different show than before though, we’re an entirely new cast of characters and place and people, I haven’t seen the original, my parents have.”
Asked whether she feels extra pressure because of the programme’s great reputation she replied: “I don’t care, I’m not bothered. I think it’s fantastic. I just hope that people really love it and enjoy it, I feel really positive about it.
“Heidi’s writing is exquisite. And I’ve never seen a set like it, the scale and the detail is fantastic.”
Next we caught up with Claire Foy, star of Little Dorrit, who plays Lady Persephone, asked about her character she said: “She’s definitely a rebel, Persie, but she’s lovely with it.
“She’s Agnes’s sister, you don’t learn much about her in the first episode, but she’s brought to London from Wales to do the whole social thing and when she arrives she’s very uncouth.
“But that stays with Persie throughout the whole thing, she doesn’t conform in anyway, not deliberately, she just wants excitement and parties.”
In the show we see Persie on a Blackshirts march. At the time Britain was facing a threat from Oswald Mosley’s fascist Blackshirts, as Claire explains: “Politics offers her excitement, at the time in 1936 it was exciting, a lot of girls like Percy went off the tracks a little bit. She just goes where the boys are, where the fun is, but she does really read up on it and get in to it.
“She only cares about herself and doesn’t really listen to people either,” she continues.
“Agnes is probably a bit ashamed of Persie, she wants Persie to be a proper lady but she’s has spent her entire life around animals roaming around the Welsh countryside wearing her dad’s clothes, she’s not at all that way inclined. I think Persie deep down wants to be like Agnes but she doesn’t know how to do that so she decides to piss her off instead.”
Speaking of her admiration for her fellow cast members she said: “Anne Reid was a hero, and that’s mainly from Corrie, obviously Eileen and everyone else really, I’d heard of them all before I joined the show.”
Anne Reid, best known for her roles as Val Barlow in Coronation Street and Jean in Dinnerladies, plays Clarice Thackeray, the cook of the Holland household, who rules the downstairs kitchen.
“When my agent rang me and said they want me to play the cook, I thought ‘I can’t cook!’,” she said.”Then I got the script and I thought she’s great, she’s so up herself.”
Luckily for Anne the role didn’t involve actually cooking: “The food is already made, my biggest problem is not eating it. I had the biggest bowl of cream that I was whipping and I absolutely adore double cream, the cakes are alright because you can’t start cutting in to cakes because they’d notice.”
“I had a brand new kitchen and oven in April but it’s never been switched on. I mostly make stir fries or use the microwave and eat salads.”
Asked what it was like working with Jean Marsh she said: “Jean has lots of tales. She seems so serious on the screen and yet she’s outrageously funny in real life. We laugh all the time and are very badly behaved.”
Anne hopes people will take a fresh approach to the new Upstairs Downstairs, she explained: “The danger is that people will think they are getting the same thing and they’re not. I hope people will give it a chance and look at it as something new. I think it’s a fascinating period.”
The first of the three part series of Upstairs Downstairs is being shown on Boxing Day at 9pm on BBC One. This is definitely one not to miss.
By Sarah Dean for AOL TV.
(Source: aoltv.co.uk)