Manor House

To the amazement of certain members of my family who do not think such things are possible, I have managed to survive nine months without a television. However, I have cheated a little, by using library video equipment to view certain programs that I have a particular interest in seeing. I consider this to be qualitatively very different than just passively viewing whatever happens to beamed into my living room -- at least it involves making a conscious choice and some directed effort!

One of the most recent such choices was PBS's Manor House, courtesy of Suburban Public Library and the local library network.

Like the other "House" programs (1900 House; Frontier House; Colonial House), it's a sort of historically-literate reality show which places a gaggle of modern-day volunteers into a recreation of the lifestyle of a bygone era and then documents their efforts to adjust to it and successfully meet its demands. The results can be enlightening and excruciating, and, occasionally, funny. In this case, the historical milieu is a very posh English "country house" circa 1905, at the height of the extravagant Edwardian era. And the obstacles are not things like lack of food or exposure to wintry winds, but the antiquated social mores and rigid class system of that era.

Some of the participants seem to have no trouble adjusting to their new lives. The volunteer chosen to live the life of the wealthy landowner takes to his new life of shooting parties, fishing, extravagant multiple-course dinners, and being waited on hand-and-foot with a disturbingly somnolent alacrity. The youngest son of his family seems to enjoy being doted upon and opines, at one point, that he wishes modern-day families had servants, because it's so "efficient". After all, when he wants something done, he just has to tell somebody to do it!

Servants, you say? Ah yes. Not everybody has life quite so easy....

The majority of the volunteers are assigned roles as servants in the great house, ranging in rank from the butler, who is responsible for managing the enterprise and acting as the sole means of officially-countenanced contact between upstairs and downstairs, through various ranks of housekeepers, cooks, footmen, maids, and finally the hallboy, who doesn't even get to have a private bed, but sleeps in a pull-down cot in the middle of the servants' hallway. And it's here, among the servants, that the real drama of the series takes place, as modern-day people accustomed to modern-day employment practices awkwardly try to adjust to the practices of an era in which employers' books of rules prescribed backbreaking predawn-to-dusk schedules with no allowance for personal time, relationships, entertainment, or "democratic" management. At first things go swimmingly, but before long, the footmen are hung over; the temperamental French chef is cursing sulfurously as he clashes pots and pans furiously over a cranky, coal-burning stove; one scullery maid after another flees the house weeping in exhausted despair, and the hallboy begins plotting rebellion in a very Steerpikish manner. (It's easy to see where Mervyn Peake got his inspiration for the ossified social structures of Gormenghast!)

Meanwhile, women both upstairs and downstairs are becoming frustrated with the Edwardian limitations on their lives. The unmarried sister of the upper-class family chafes at her second-class status, and starts going quietly bonkers from sheer boredom; those servants who have husbands or boyfriends, or choose to pursue such relationships among the other servants, must do so at the risk of being instantly fired if they are discovered. The lady of the house, meanwhile, becomes almost comically obsessed with the very Gormenghastian minutia of rituals and rank.

It's worth seeing, especially for anyone who enjoyed The Remains of the Day or either version of Gormenghast, even if a number of the volunteers do "cheat" by introducing some modern attitudes toward the end.