Lord Crawley sees his family heritage, especially the grand country home Downton Abbey, as his mission in life. The death of his heir aboard the Titanic means distant cousin Matthew Crawley, a Manchester lawyer, suddenly is next in line and accepts moving onto the vast estate with his even more modernist, socially engaged mother, who clashes with his lordship’s domineering, conservative mother, the dowager. Marrying off the daughters is another concern. Meanwhile, the butler presides over a staff which serves the family, but also lead most of their entire lives in the servants’ quarters, intriguing amongst themselves |
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Julian Fellowes
Julian Fellowes 60 Minute Episodes September 26th, 2010 (UK) Hampshire, England (Hichclere) Elizabeth McGovern (Cora Crawley), Hugh Bonneville (Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham), Michelle Dockery (Lady Mary Crawley), Laura Carmichael (Lady Edith Crawley), Jim Carter (Charles Carson), Brendan Coyle (John Bates)
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Downton Abbey is a British period drama television series created by Julian Fellowes and co-produced by Carnival Films and Masterpiece. It first aired on ITV in the United Kingdom on 26 September 2010 and on PBS in the United States on 9 January 2011 as part of the Masterpiece Classic anthology.
The series, set in the Yorkshire country estate of Downton Abbey, depicts the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their servants in the post-Edwardian era — with the great events in history having an effect on their lives and on the British social hierarchy. Such events depicted throughout the series include news of the sinking of the RMS Titanic in the first series; the outbreak of World War I, the Spanish influenza pandemic, and the Marconi scandal in the second series; and the Interwar period and the formation of the Irish Free State in the third series.
Downton Abbey has received critical acclaim from television critics and won numerous accolades, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Miniseries or Television Film and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries. It was recognised by Guinness World Records as the most critically acclaimed English-language television series of 2011. It earned the most nominations of any international television series in the history of the Primetime Emmy Awards, with twenty-seven in total (after two seasons). It was the most watched television series on both ITV and PBS, and subsequently became the most successful British costume drama series since the 1981 television serial of Brideshead Revisited. By the third series, it had become one of the most widely watched television shows in the world.
The series is set in the fictional Downton Abbey, a Yorkshire country house, the seat of the Earl and Countess of Grantham, and follows the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their servants during the reign of King George V. The first series spanned the two years before the Great War beginning with news of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, which set the story in motion. The second series covered the years 1916 to 1919, and the 2011 Christmas Special covered the 1919 Christmas period, ending in early 1920. The third series picks up soon thereafter, covering 1920 through the autumn of 1921.
Highclere Castle in Hampshire was used for exterior shots of Downton Abbey and most of the interior filming. The kitchen and servants’ quarters and working areas and several “upstairs” bedrooms were constructed and filmed at Ealing Studios.
The village of Bampton in Oxfordshire was used to film outdoor scenes, most notably St Mary’s Church and the library, which served as the entrance to the cottage hospital. First World Wartrench warfare in France was filmed in rural Suffolk near the village of Akenham specially designed for period war scenes.
Many historical locations and aristocratic mansions were used to film various scenes. The fictional Haxby Park, the estate Sir Richard Carlisle intends to buy in Series 2, is part of Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire. Inveraray Castle doubled as “Duneagle Castle” in the 2012 Christmas special. Greys Court in Oxfordshire was used as the family’s secondary property, into which they proposed moving and calling ‘Downton Place’ due to financial difficulties in the third series. Also in the third series, Bates’ prison scenes were filmed at Lincoln Castle in Lincolnshire. Also in the third series, parts of the servant’s homes were filmed on Matthew Millett’s Grandma’s farm.
The Downton Abbey of the title and setting, though fictional, is described as lying in the historical County of Yorkshire. The towns of Easingwold, Kirkby Malzeard, Kirkbymoorside, Malton,Middlesbrough, Ripon, Richmond, and Thirsk, each mentioned by characters in the series, lie in present-day North Yorkshire, as does the city of York, while Leeds—similarly mentioned—lies inWest Yorkshire; local Yorkshire media speculated the general location of the fictional Downton Abbey to be somewhere in the triangulated area between the towns of Ripon, Thirsk andEasingwold.
Gareth Neame of Carnival Films conceived the idea of an Edwardian-era TV drama set in a country house and approached Fellowes, who had won an Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) for Gosford Park. Although Fellowes was reluctant to work on another project resembling Gosford, within a few weeks he returned to Neame with an outline of the first series. Fellowes writes the scripts, and his wife Emma is an informal story editor.[13]
The opening theme to Downton Abbey entitled “Did I Make the Most of Loving You?” was composed by John Lunn, and is produced and arranged by Dominik Hauser and runs for thirty-five seconds.The theme was released commercially in both the UK and US on 9 January 2013 by BSX Digital. An extended suite version was released on the soundtrack for the show in 19 September 2011 in the UK and later in the US on 13 December 2011. The soundtrack also included the song performed by singer Mary-Jess Leaverland. According to Lunn, the inspiration for the theme to Downton Abbey came from James Brown.