Class and Conservatism in Downton Abbey (2010–)

Abstract

ITV’s BAFTA and Golden Globe winning Downton Abbey was, and is still, the television success story of recent years. First shown in 2010 and now on its sixth series, it has been declared the most successful British period drama since 1981’s Brideshead Revisited, with average viewing figures of around 9 million per episode, and it has also been extremely popular in America.¹ Its success may partly arise from the fact that it represents a departure from most period productions, being not an adaptation of a classic novel but a made-for-TV drama created by the writer of film re-imaginings of the past like Gosford Park and The Young Victoria, Julian Fellowes. Thus it does not face the challenges of rendering a literary text accessible for a contemporary audience but instead is made with that audience in mind. As such it combines period drama with elements of the soap opera — a large cast of characters, numerous subplots and parallel storylines — and, like Gosford Park and in the tradition of (recently remade) Upstairs Downstairs, follows the lives of both servants and employers in the eponymous house.