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Manor House | Recreating Edwardian Country Life "Manor House" is PBS's fascinating recreation of life upstairs and downstairs in an Edwardian country home. For three months, ordinary people played the parts of the Lord and Lady and the thirteen servants who worked endlessly for them. The house was furnished circa 1906, the cast members were dressed authentically, and there were no modern conveniences whatever.<BR> <BR>Anna and John, the married couple who became the Lord and Lady of the house, had no trouble fitting into the roles of snobbish aristocrats who spent their days in selfish pleasures, without the slightest notion of what their servants were going through. They gave elegant dinners, a ball, and a charity fete, never realizing their staff were run ragged by their demands. They enjoyed every minute of their time as would-be artistocrats.<BR> <BR>From the scullery maid, who washed dishes 16 hours a day, to the footmen who served the meals, to the butler who supervised all the goings-on downstairs, we learn a servant's life was dreary, indeed. They worked seven days a week, only left the kitchen for morning prayers, and had no social or private lives. <BR> <BR>Mr. Edgar, the wonderfully dignified butler (an architect in real-life), was my favorite cast member. His grandfather had been an Edwardian butler, and he strove to carry on the tradition of strict discipline and absolute obedience. His tender heart caused him to pity his exhausted staff and bend the rules on occasion, endearing him to them and to us, as well.<BR> We learn all the details of life in a big house of that era, and the inter-relationships of the cast make for simply great tv. Two scullery maids quit after only days, due to the unbearably hard work. Another scullery maid found romance (quite forbidden in Edwardian times) with the hall-boy, and the entire staff eventually learned to co-exist with the tempermental French chef.<BR> <BR>This is a great series, highly recommended for those who enjoy English history! It is exciting and educational. Fascinating! At the beginning of the show, Anna Oliff-Cooper describes her life as a busy doctor. She seems like the ultimate professional woman, juggling the demands of career and family. <BR>The Oliff-Coopers (Anna, her sister, her sons, and her stuffy husband John) enter the Manor House playing the "aristocrats" and soon enough, this loving mother and doctor becomes lazy and vain. She never sees her children and doesnt care. She and her husband spend all day planning lavish balls, meeting Important People, and worrying about clothes and fashions. Meanwhile, the servants work 18 hour days, exhausted and resentful. <BR>This is "reality tv" at its best, and like all good reality tv, the situations feel real enough to be uncomfortable. PBS's "Fronteir House" showed a disintegration of a family and a petty but vicious frontier feud. "Manor House" has even more memorable characters, including the pompous John Oliff-Cooper, who is soon spouting silly theories about social darwinism. Sir Edgar is the stern but softhearted butler, who at first sides with his masters, but ends up identifying intensely with the downstairs servants. There's an Indian tutor who is shunned by both the downstairs servants for his snobbery and the upstairs family for, well, his being a tutor. There's even a downstairs romance between the scullery maid and the hall boy. A sympathetic Edgar knows abot the romance (which would have been strictly forbidden) but looks the other way.<BR>In the end, upstairs and downstairs look more even than one would imagine. The Oliff-Coopers are indolent, but not really happy -- their small son soon considers the downstairs servants more like family. Anna's sister is so unhappy she leaves the house. The downstairs servants fight but also bond tightly.<BR>Overall, this was a wonderful series. 3 1/2 stars, slow going, interesting, tho lacking details I managed to miss much of this program during it's airings on PBS so when I saw it was due out on DVD I decided to get it. I like the concept of taking a modern day family and dropping them into an earlier time setting but this mini-series seemed to me like it lacks something. As in the earlier "1900 House" a target home was selected and restored to period function, here all details of that are left out. I would also have liked seeing/hearing more about the family/servant selection process, you get a little of that in watching the program. I found it interesting to watch but think an hour or so at a time is enough for me. Both "1900 House" and "Manor House" have companion books, you'll want it for this series especially to get a good backgrounding on what is going on.<BR>I haven't gotten through it all yet but saw that the Oliff-Cooper family took to their roles a little too well to suit the servants. The servants brought out one of the most glaring problems in the cast selection process, the producers appear to have sometimes done a terrible job in selection. The first scullery maid candidate was an 18 yr. old who had no idea what she was getting into, she took off after just two days. I think the 2nd one did better but it took three tries to get one who could take the job, how could the selection process have been so badly managed? That lowest ranking manservant was a real prize too, seemed to resent the more privileged types way too much. All, or nearly all, of the others did quite well in what I've seen of the story. There's a two part diary included on Disc #1, I watched part one and thought it as interesting, if not more, than the program itself. Apparently they were filming around Sept. 11, 2001 because a couple of the cast made nice references to the tragedy.<BR>The program is interesting to watch but you'll need to get the book, Amazon has it, as a companion guide- it's much better than the book for "1900 House".<BR>The onscreen menu could use a little help I think, or a resonably large TV screen to watch the show on. I've tried it out on a small portable Sony DVD player, the show looks just fine but the menu requires a larger screen to read it well. I could read everything adequately but when changing menu selections the color shift on moving from one choice to another wasn't good enough to tell where you were, that's why you either need a bigger screen or PBS needed to make the menu larger or color changing. 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