Prime Time

Prime Time

Titanic Hits Soopburb, Lady Bellamy Coes Down

Richard Walls

by

In case you don't know, and according to the Nielsen ratings you probably don't, the best series on TV right now is Upstairs, Downstairs, bar none, and that includes Sanford And Son (a.k.a. The Whitman Mayo Show) and even more especially All In The Family — I mean, how many times can you laugh at the same joke? Any sitcom is going to get a little less funny each week (to do otherwise would be to go against nature) "cause TV gives you a premise then works it, which is more disastrous to comedy than drama. But the media is habit forming and if you still think it's funny everytime Archie says "meathead" and the electronically goosed live audience laughs like it's gonna burst a blood vessel (which makes my teeth grate as much as any laugh track) then you're merely behaving in a normal post-Pavlovian way.

Audience manipulation aside, the best form of entertainment for TV is soap opera "cause the protean nature of its structure allows the premise to be changed, sometimes radically tho usually moderately, whenever it's been work-

ed enough. This and their inherent episodic narrative are why they continue year after year like the perpetual Edge of Night. Personally, I never watch the damn things "cause I always assumed that they were made for idiots. That is until I started watching Upstairs, Downstairs.

Up, Down (it'll get shorter as the column goes on) may be a superior soaper, but the fact remains it is a soap opera and as I've mentioned the best series on TV. (I should interject at this

point that I am mature enough to realize that judging things as "best" is a matter of personal taste, and that taste is predicated on myriad social/psychological influences, but if you disagree with me in this instance then there is simply no excuse for your behavior.) The show is clothed in just enough pretentiousness to lull snobs like me into watching it without realizing what it is (i.e. a soap opera) — and by the time we do realize it's too late and we don't care. First of all it's on PBS and it's British which means Instant Culture to most Americans. And it's shown as part of a series called Masterpiece Theatre, a title that makes you feel you should at least smoke a pipe while you watch it, women included. And then there's Alistair Cooke. The very name embodies wry dignity. During the first season(which consisted of 13 episodes picked from the first two British seasons) not only did Mr. Cooke offer us a bemused low-keyed introduction to each program, but he also laid on us a brief "Edwardian Essay" at the end of each show to fill in the time that commercials would usually fill. Very. impressive. I was fooled for about the first six weeks. After that, when recommending the show to friends I became defensive — "It's just an Edwardian soap opera but it's really quite good," and eventually defiant — "I know it's just a goddamn soap opera but it's fucking good!" Now I just say "You haven't seen it? Pity." That's how it grows on you.

The actors are remarkable and, with one exception, unknown to American viewers (discounting the most crazed film buffs). The exception is Gordon Jackson who has been subliminally preparing audiences for his pivotal role as Mr. "udson by his appearance over the past two decades in many British films big and small, as a stolid likable Scottish dude who never initiates any action but ingratiates himself to the viewer — just enuff so that it's a case of Where have I seen him before? Some of his biggies (and this is where you've seen him before) include Tunes Of Glory ("60) where when John Mills and then Alec Guinness went totally bananas he re-

mained by their sides, as sane as a pancake; The Great Escape ("63) where he and Richard Attenborough are two of the few people who manage to live through the movie (you may recall the scene where he and Attenborough have escaped from the POW camp and while trying to pass themselves off as German civilians Jackson blows it by saying "thank you" to some Nazi instead of "danke" — Academy stuff); The Ipcress File ("65) where he was one of the desk spies, not much of a role but a good flick; and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie ("68) where he played Maggie Smith's timid lover. There's lots more but this establishes the Jackson persona, a perfect Mr. "udson, a figure of unquestioned authority with the Downstairs people (the servants — he's head butler) and of unflappable servitude with the Upstairs people (pseudo aristocrats). The cat can act and acting isn't something you expect from TV.

On the opposite end of the performance spectrum is David Langton as Mr. Richard Bellamy, head of the household and conservative member of parliament. He's best at sitting down, standing up, and looking as tho he's trying to remember what he had for breakfast that morning (posibly myopia). He's so bad that in a recent episode that featured him (everybody gets featured now and then) being pursued by a French "adventuress" it was truly difficult to tell whether or not they were intentionally playing the love scenes for laughs.

Other notables include Jean Marsh (co-creator of the series) as Rose, the main maid who used to have meaty roles in most of the episodes but seems to be in the process of being phased out this season, and Angela Badtfeley as the feisty cook, Mrs. Bridges. But it's really ensemble acting most of the time and it works and it's great.

There used to be a Lady Bellamy too, played by Rachel Gurney, a beautiful woman with a perpetually benign expression on her face. Apparently Ms. Gurney wanted to leave the series and in the grand tradition of soap operas the character she played was snuffed. But what American soaper could do it with such class, not to mention historical, rather than hysterical, reverberations? It seems that the poor Lady wanted to visit her daughter in America and so she and her personal maid boarded the Titanic .. When they showed the episode where the personal maid, who survived the disaster, returned to the Bellamy household I was misty for the whole hour.

It may be difficult for a newcomer to get so emotionally involved at this late point in the series. Still, I think it's a good time to start tuning in "cause the way I figure it World War I is due to break out any week now. And that oughta be a corker.