Category: Kristine Hughes

Heads Up On Downton Abbey

ITV will be broadcasing a new costume drama series, Downton Abbey, written and created by Oscar-winning writer Julian Fellowes and starring Maggie Smith as Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham, Hugh Bonneville as Robert, Earl of Grantham and Elizabeth McGovern as Robert’s wife, Cora, Countess of Grantham. By the way, there was a real-life Earl of Grantham, a cousin of William III, but the title became extinct when he died in 1754.
The new series, very much a la Upstairs, Downstairs, is set in an Edwardian country house in 1912 and follows the Crawley family and the servants who work for them. The Earl is married to an American and they have three daughters – a fact which presents all manner of problems when it comes to the vexed question of who will continue the Crawley line.

The fictional Crawleys have  been the Earls of Grantham since 1772 and occupy the upstairs rooms, whilst below stairs are other residents, the servants, as fiercely possessive of their ranks as anyone above. Some of them are loyal to the family and are committed to Downton as a way of life, others are moving through, on the look out for new opportunities or love or just adventure. The difference being that they know so many of the secrets of the family, while the family knows so few of theirs.

Downton Abbey’s writer and creator is Julian Fellowes (at left), who also wrote Gosford Park and The Young Victoria, recently said: “It is no secret that I am fascinated by the extraordinary variety of people that occupied the great country houses. Where men and women worked alongside each other and lived in close proximity, but were separated in their dreams and aspirations by a distance that makes the moon seem close. Television drama often relies on a structure that will involve characters of different backgrounds, any hospital soap opera or detective series can give you that, but there is no narrative base that can provide members of every level of society, sleeping under a single roof, more believably than a great house before the First War. “
Downton Abbey itself will be played by Highclere Castle. Executive Producer and Managing Director of Carnival Films, Gareth Neame said: “Highclere Castle is the perfect location for the family home in our drama. The estate is absolutely breathtaking and the house itself is splendid beyond belief. Julian had Highclere in mind when he was writing the script and we are thrilled that Lord and Lady Carnarvon have agreed to allow us to invade their beautiful home and grounds for the duration of our shoot.”
The village locations were shot in Bampton, Oxfordshire. Producer Nigel Marchant said: “Downton Abbey is supposed to be set in Yorkshire, and we needed to be able to create a fictional village nearer London. Bampton is perfect because it is so well preserved, and you hardly need to do anything in terms of alterations.  There are three big manor houses which make perfect locations and we will be using different parts of the village.”

The series has been airing in seven installments in Britain, which means we probably won’t have the pleasure of seeing it for about a year. It has proved popular across the pond and a second series has been commissioned. However, not all is rosey with the production, as recently Julian Fellowes has been accused of lifting certain plotlines and devices straight from Little Women and other works. In addition, viewers have written to complain about historical inaccuracies, including seeing t.v. aerials on roofs and double yellow lines on the roads. You can read the full story in The Telegraph.

An Evening with Ian Kelly

Whilst in New York recently, I finally had to opportunity to meet with actor/author Ian Kelly. I was introduced to Ian through our mutual friend, Jo Manning. Ian and I had previously spoken on the telephone and emailed, but we’d never actually met as the fates inevitably ruined any plans we’d made to get together on either side of the pond. Therefore, it was a decided pleasure to actually take in a performance of Ian’s new play, The Pitmen Painters, and to finally have a drink and a chat with Ian afterwards.

Christopher Connel, from left, David Whitaker, Deka Walmsley, Michael Hodgson and Ian Kelly

Direct from a sold-out engagement at London’s National Theatre, this fascinating new play by Tony Award winner Lee Hall (writer of Broadway’s mega-hit Billy Elliot) comes to Broadway with its entire original London cast intact. The Pitmen Painters is based on the triumphant true story of a group of British miners who discover a new way to express themselves and unexpectedly become art-world sensations. Ian plays Robert Lyon, who was hired to teach the men about art appreciation and whose efforts afford the group an entirely new way of looking at both art and their lives.

  Of course, The Pitmen Painters wasn’t Ian’s first turn on the boards. He’s appeared in many other productions, many of them one-man shows.

Ian has appeared in A Busy Day, the lost comedy by Fanny Burney commissioned by Sheridan for the 1800 season at Covent Garden that played first in Bristol in 1994 and then on the London fringe in 1995 before its eventual West End production in 2000. Ian played Frank Cleveland in both productions and helped champion the plays’ West End premiere, which he co-produced.

In a scene in The Pitmen Painters, Ian, as Lyon, actually creates a sketch of Oliver Kilbourn, the most gifted artist among the miners, whilst on-stage. The audience watches the sketch progress. Whilst the fact that Ian can draw while acting is amazing, it’s nothing compared to the multi-tasking he did during the 2004 run of Cooking for Kings, a play based on Ian’s biography of French chef Antonin Careme adapted for the new York stage as a one-man show; part of the first Brits Off Broadway Festival. In addition to acting, Ian both cooked and fed the audience.

A review by New York Theater Wire said: ‘Kelly’s performance is as tart as a lemon, as sweet as chocolate, as savory as a thick stew. And finally, it is as satisfying as a banquet. From early childhood most people learn to equate food with love. But few take the metaphor to the same extremes as legendary French chef Antonin Careme, whose life story is told in Ian Kelly’s one-man-show “Cooking for Kings.” Kelly fills his play with tantalizing details and garnishes them with ironic wit and clever wordplay. As a performer, Kelly has boundless energy and tremendous powers of concentration and he makes a technically difficult play look deceptively easy. While Careme, who is actually cooking, grabs bowls, pots and utensils from an overhead rack and chops, stirs and heats, he describes his activities with the zest of Julia Child. And Careme is accomplished at multitasking. He is never at a loss for words. He never loses his train of thought. If Careme’s story is fascinating because of the famous people he knew, the tumultuous times he lived in and the many innovations he made in the art of cooking (from the dishes he made to the hat he wore), it is powerful on a more personal level. Kelly portrays the great chef as vain and sarcastic but also vulnerable and ultimately tragic.’

Anthony Bourdain called the play: ‘A magnificent work. Ian Kelly is at the vanguard of the new rock’n’roll of culinary literature.’

Cooking for Kings brought Ian rave reviews in 2004 and he was brought back by popular demand by the theatre in 2006 in rep with his appearance in Beau Brummell in which Kelly played the Beau – another one-man show based on a book he’d written.

 

Beau Brummell opened on May 9th 2006 at 59e59 Theater in New York to coincide with the launch of Kelly’s biography of Brummell and the Anglomania Fashion Exhibition at the Metropolitan Art Museum.

From The New York Times: ‘This story of a man who is remembered for his clothes begins with the title character (Ian Kelly) stark naked. He is in the tub, holding a razor to his throat and threatening suicide, but he allows his valet, Austin (Ryan Early), to stop him… Mr. Kelly is extremely funny, engaging and intensely sympathetic as Brummell,
tossing out grand observations (“Excess is the antithesis of style,” “How can one be lonely with a looking glass?”) as if to the manner born while conveying with aching pathos the quiet agonies of a ruined man trying not to see through his delusions.’

In addition to Ian’s bringing Brummell to life on both the page and the stage, his bio of The Beau was made into a movie, This Charming Man.

Ian has also written the definitive biography of Casanova, which was named The Sunday Times Biography of the Year.

After the performance of The Pitmen Painters, Brooke and I met Ian by the stage door and headed across the street to the Glass House Tavern, where we slid into a semi-circle of a booth, ordered drinks and chatted about books, Brummell and London. Ian – quite tall, incredibly charming and a font of literary information – regaled us with tales of Brummell: the man, the book, the play and the movie. There were aspects of each that he both liked and disliked. While James Purefoy was tapped to play Brummell in the movie, Ian played Robert, one of the “Bad” Manners brothers. Screamingly funny note: On the first day of shooting, the assistant director, who apparently had no idea who Ian was, other than the actor playing Robert Manners, pulled Ian aside and attempted to explain his character to him. Ha!

Look for Ian playing the doctor in Downton Abbey (see tomorrow’s post) and as Hermione Granger’s Muggle dentist father in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. In fact, the commercial for the film came on when we were together and after watching it, Ian turned to me and said, in best tongue-in-cheek fashion, “Looks like I didn’t make it to the trailer.” Ian was a bit taken aback when I asked him, apropos of nothing,”So, what’s Alan Rickman like?” “I’m sorry,” Ian responded after a beat, “Alan Rickman?” “Yes,” I clarified, “you know, Snape, in Harry Potter.” Turns out that Ian didn’t have any scenes with Rickman, but he did tell me that the set designers built the entire Granger house on a London back lot, furnished it to the highest degree of comfort and decoration, used it for his scenes and then dismantled the entire building down to the last nail.

Moving on to books, Ian told us about doing research in the London Library, living in Venice for a while while researching Casanova and about his next biography, due out in 2012. While I can’t give the game away, I can tell you that, according to Ian, his subject will be “yet another Georgian bad boy.” Hint: think theatre. You can visit Ian’s website here.



A Decidedly Non-English Visitor

Try as I might, I can’t find a way to put a British spin on this post, so I’ll just beg your indulgence in order to tell you that my husband and I have recently been blessed by the appearance of a burrowing owl who has taken up residency on our front porch.
You can barely see him (her), but he’s standing in the flower pot to the right, behind the white railings.

Here’s a closer look. True to its name, the Burrowing Owl nests in a hole in the ground. Although it is quite willing to dig its own burrow, it often uses one already provided by prairie dogs, skunks, armadillos, or tortoises. The first published report of the Burrowing Owl was in 1782 by Giovanni Iganzio Molina, an Italian Jesuit priest stationed in Chile.

The Burrowing Owl can be seen year-round, day or night, in central and south Florida. They prefer open prairie, but are also found in agricultural, recreational and residential areas. Burrowing Owls are the only North American owl that nests underground, and sometimes they will nest colonially with just a few feet separating each burrow.

Florida Burrowing Owls are state-listed as a species of special concern. Estimates put the Florida Burrowing Owl population at around 3,000 birds. The City of Cape Coral – where we live – claims Florida’s largest population of the burrowing owl, and each year holds a Burrowing Owl Festival.


We’ve named ours “Ollie.”

Depp to Star in Remake of Dark Shadows

Keeping in the Halloween spirit, I’ll tell you that it’s been announced that the legendary, and slightly mad, director Tim Burton has signed Pride And Prejudice And Zombies writer Seth Grahame-Smith to adapt the late ’60s horror-soap-opera Dark Shadow into a film starring the slightly mad Johnny Depp. Apparently, Grahame-Smith was offered the job because Burton enjoyed his lesser known zombie-history novel Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. In fact, Burton liked it so much that he bought the rights and Burton is currently in pre-production on the film version of that novel.

In the movie version of the of Dark Shadows, the cult vampire daytime soap opera that ran from 1966 to 1971, Depp is set to play the lead Barnabas Collins, who throughout the show’s 1200 episodes experienced storyarcs including time travel, parallel universes, and encounters with many things that went bump in the night. Shooting on the film is slated to begin in January 2011 and this project will be the eighth collaboration for Depp/Burton, who last teamed up on Alice in Wonderland, a film not meant to be viewed without 3-D glasses and/or copious amounts of mind altering substances. Meanwhile, Depp is currently filming the next Pirates of the Caribbean installment.

Amazingly, actor Jonathan Frid, who played Barnabas Collins in the television show, is still alive and kicking and has his own website. And here I thought he’d only played a vampire.

Trick or Treat . . . . . .

Ha-Ha

One day, I shall have a Grade I listed home in England that will come complete with a typical English garden. This garden will include a multitude of roses, fountains, statuary, a maze, a grotto, a Ha Ha and even, perhaps, a hermit. Ha! Seriously, I always think a Ha Ha gives a property a substantial feel, as though it were absolutely necessary in order to separate your Georgian pile from the multitude of cows and sheep one is wealthy enough to allow to graze on one’s vast acreage. It is thought that their name, Ha-Ha, is derived from the sound persons made upon first encountering them. Ha-Has were both unexpected and amusing.

From Wikipedia: “The Ha-Ha is an expression in garden design that refers to a trench, in which is a fence concealed from view. Alternatively it can be used to mean a ditch the one side of which is vertical and faced with stone, the other face sloped and turfed, making the trench, in effect, a retaining wall (this is also sometimes known as a deer leap). The ha-ha is designed not to interrupt the view from a garden, pleasure-ground, or park, while maintaining a physical barrier at least in one direction.”

Here’s the Ha-Ha at Kyme Castle
And one at Leven Hall, below This is an arrangement of a sunken wall and ditch to allow views of the countryside beyond the garden and is the earliest recorded example of a Ha-Ha in England.
And (drumroll, please) the Ha-Ha at Burghley House

This is a sunken wall, which does not interrupt the views of a sweeping landscape, but which still does the job of keeping livestock away from gardens near a house. This feature began to form part of the English landscape in the 1720s. In 1770, Horace Walpole wrote: “No sooner was this simple enchantment made, than levelling, mowing, rolling followed. The contiguous ground of the park without the sunk fence was to be harmonised with the lawn within; and the garden in its turn was to be set free from its prim regularity, that it might assort with the wilder country without.”

A Ha Ha was also incorporated into the gardens at Kew, as descrived in Volume 10 of the Kew Bulletin, published by the Royal Botanical Garden in 1896: “The gardens of Kew are not very large, nor is their situation by any means advantageous, as it is low and commands no prospects. Originally the ground was one continued dead flat, the soil was in general barren, and without either wood or water. With so many disadvantages, it was not easy to produce anything tolerable in gardening; but princely munificence, guided by a director equally skilled in cultivating the earth and in the polite arts, overcame all difficulties. What was once a desert is now an Eden.

” The task could not have been easy. But there seems reason to believe that in the main features which still survive it was the work of (William) Kent, who has been termed the ‘founder of the school of landscape gardening.’ By the introduction of  the sunk fence or ha-ha (largely used at Kew) instead of walls or fences,” he brought external scenery into his landscape effects.”

In A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening by Andrew Jackson Downing (1855) the author elaborates: It is not too much to say that Kent was the leader of this class. Originally a painter, and the friend of Lord Burlington, he next devoted himself to the subject, and was, undoubtedly, the first professional landscape gardener in the modern style. Previous artists had confined their efforts within the rigid walls of the garden, but Kent, who saw in all nature a garden-landscape, demolished the walls, introduced the ha-ha, and by blending the park and the garden, substituted for the primness of the old inclosure, the freedom of the pleasure-ground.

Here’s a wonderful journal of the restoration of the Ha Ha at the Stow Landscape Gardens, above, where William Kent’s ideas about garden design were also implemented. In 1741, Lancelot (Capability) Brown was hired as head gardener, in charge of executing Kent’s designs. Ten years later, in 1751, Brown left Stowe and later became the most sought after garden designer in England.