High up in the eaves of Downton Abbey, a single bedroom light glows over the countryside. Over Thirsk and Repton, over the train that takes Lady Edith to and from London, over the tortured landscape of Crawley country, with its perfumed aristocrats and loyal servants.
Over the pots of soup stirred by Mrs Patmore the cook, over the new-fangled Marcel Waves tonged into shape on the ladies’ heads by Anna the maid, over the vowels trampled to death by Branson the Fenian former chauffeur, that tweed-wearing despoiler of daughters still inexplicably held tight in the bosom of the Crawley family.
It shines over those who flourish both upstairs and downstairs, and over those who are dearly . . . sob . . . departed.
Yes, tinkle your teacups, get those pinkies aloft and say hurrah for Downton Abbey, which returned in triumph for a fourth series in the UK last week, and graces our screens in the UAE on Thursday. The show began its fourth season in the UK on September 20 with its biggest opening episode to date, with more than 9.5 million viewers, eclipsing the 9 million viewers who tuned into the first episodes of series two and three, and the 7.7 million who watched the season one debut in 2010.
The good news is that the smash-hit ITV period drama, written and created by Julian Fellowes, has lost none of its charm, absurdity or appeal.
And what is going on this time? Everything and nothing.
One plotline concerned itself with whether or not Daisy the kitchen maid would receive a Valentine. Tremendous dramatic potential right there! Still your beating hearts. Quench the surge of excitement rippling through your soul. She might, she might not, OK? That’s just how Downton rolls.
Yet, like that chandelier so unconvincingly tickled by a curiously etiolated feather duster in the opening credits, Downton Abbey has become a fixture. Indeed, the less that happens, the more I like it.
Lady Edith buys Mrs Patmore a whisk to help with the egg whites. Mr Bates kisses his wife, Anna, right beside the bells. Don’t be smutty: I mean the bells on the board which summon the servants upstairs.
‘That’s enough of that, Mr Bates, we’ve got work to do,’ she reprimands, all but thwacking him with a pair of freshly steamed bloomers.
Meanwhile, Lord Grantham wears his multi-tasselled dressing gown and worries about death duties. In one scene, he was plastered, bizarrely, with so much stage make-up he looked like Lord Coco of Clowns. Never mind, for fans like me, in scenes good or bad, it is all utter bliss.
Fire on, kettle on, game on. There is no surer sign that autumn is upon us than the unimpeachable sight of Carson the butler (Jim Carter), that dark enforcer of aristocratic manners and values, gliding along the corridor of his fiefdom glowering at a creased napkin, or a footman who has failed to wield the langoustine forceps correctly at lunch.
Or the anvil-faced dowager duchess Violet (Dame Maggie Smith) taking to her bed for a fortnight because someone wore the wrong colour of hat to church. If there is umbrage to be taken, rest assured her name is on the first freshly minted batch.
I cannot wait to see her face when, in episodes to come, wilful young Lady Rose (Lily James) develops a friendship with a new character, jazz singer Jack Ross (Gary Carr), the first black man to visit Downton. Age-appropriate conniptions ahoy.
Time-wise, the new series begins six months after the death of Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens), last seen in the tear-stained Christmas special of 2012 with a trickle of raspberry jam running down his noble brow.
He survived World War I, the oh-so-convenient death of his fiancee, Lavinia, from Spanish Flu and even the curious incident of the Trouser Tingle. After all that, he died in a car crash shortly after holding his newborn son for the first and last time.
Now, all that’s left of him is a framed photograph in Lady Mary’s bedroom – and a sea of grief. Stiff-backed Michelle Dockery breaks out the monster glums to portray the depths of Mary’s suffering. She wanders around Downton like a sad ironing board.
Dripping in widow’s weeds, face like a wet weekend, she makes Queen Victoria look like Timmy Mallett. She won’t wear the colourful shawl proffered by Anna (Joanne Froggatt) – she wants the black one.
She glides into the breakfast room with a face like a headstone; she is a Morticia in mourning, with a heart that cannot be mended. Someone please say something to cheer her up!
‘The price of great love is great misery when one of you dies,’ her father Lord Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) tells her, dipping into his handy box of aphorisms.
‘She’s in a very dark place, I’m afraid,’ says her mother Cora (Elizabeth McGovern), sounding less like an Edwardian countess and more like a therapist who had just time-travelled back from a bereavement workshop on the Oprah show.
Dowager Countess Violet may have previously opined that ‘no one wants to kiss a gal in black’, but this series does promise fresh suitors hoping to mop up Mary’s grief.
They include dashing Charles Blake (Julian Ovenden, who played Foyle’s dishy Spitfire pilot son in Foyle’s War), a civil servant with big ideas about the future of the Abbey, and her childhood friend Viscount Gillingham (Tom Cullen). Mary immediately takes against Charles, but is fond of her old pal. Both men have a big task ahead trying to cheer her up.
Below stairs, Butler Carson and housekeeper Mrs Hughes (Phyllis Logan) still matador around each other, shimmering with repressed sexuality and loneliness, the aches of the age.
There is a very big deal brewing with Carson, who in his previous life was one half of a song-and-dance vaudeville act – a preposterous notion for his fans to swallow.
Back in the first series, he had to steal potatoes to feed his ex-partner Charles Grigg, who was hiding out in the wood shed trying to blackmail him. Now Charlie is in the poorhouse, begging Carson for help. It’s like Ant haunting Dec 60 years down the line – and equally as believable.
As with any emotional upheaval, Carson is pretending it isn’t happening and seeks refuge in the silver cupboard.
‘This is a man you sang and danced with. Do you feel nothing?’ Mrs Hughes nags.
But Carson’s not answering. He’s onto polishing the candlesticks.
Feeling that Charlie is not beyond a decent life, Mrs Hughes tracks him down and arranges for him to stay with Matthew’s heartbroken mother, Mrs Crawley (Penelope Wilton). Yes. Frying breakfast sausages for one half of Flanagan and Allen. Just what every grieving mother needs to help her over the loss. That’ll work.
Perhaps the biggest transformation of all is that of Lady Edith. For three long series she has been the plain sister, the wallflower snuffling around in tweeds after snogging a farmer and being jilted by Sir Anthony Strallan.
Now, with her cap of shingled hair, jazz-age sensibilities and her handsome suitor, she represents the encroachment of the modern world into the dusty corners of Downton. As Downton tradition demands, this is represented by frequently catching the train to and from London – and by even more frequent conversations which allude to the trip.
Lady Mary: ‘When are you leaving for London?’
Lady Edith: ‘I’m catching the 10 o’clock.’
Lady Mary (wanly): ‘Have a happy time.’
She certainly does. Here she comes in a sea-green chiffon dress and oyster satin elbow-length gloves, having dinner at The Criterion with her boyfriend and editor Michael (Charles Edwards). You might remember he is married to a lunatic – chained to a lunatic, you might say – but surely all of us are, in one way or another?
However, Edith is happy to be somewhere where she is appreciated for herself, not for being an earl’s daughter. She is a newspaper columnist, after all, a woman of note!
She spots the bottle of champagne he has ordered and her eyes shine like stars. ‘Heavens. How spoiling,’ she says.
It’s as apt a description as any about the return of Downton Abbey.
