Tag: Great Britain

The history of Great Britain is so rich with cultural superiority and equanimity that I find my fascination for the country and its historical personalities knows no bounds.

The addiction for Downton Abbey that swept the world was a remarkable thing to watch. I will be one of the first to raise my hand when the obsessed are asked to reveal themselves! And though I adored the more formal gestalt at the beginning of the television series, I was enthralled to watch as the fashions and the manners grew more modern as the show neared its conclusion.

One of my posts, I Met Virginia Woolf in This Room, highlights these changing times as Lady Edith Crawley, played by Laura Carmichael, sets out for London and a life as a journalist dressed in felicitous flapper-era fashion. Julian Fellowes could not have created a better milieu for her than the flat she inherited through Michael Gregson, who met an untimely death in Germany.

But before he did, Fellowes used Lady Edith’s character to express the cultural and historical changes in Great Britain, and he did so more powerfully with her than with any other personality he crafted for the series in my opinion. He began what I consider a brilliant tack for her in season four when she began the move toward a more modern life. One of my favorite scenes is when she is attending a party at Gregson’s in 1922, and is having a conversation with Virginia Woolf.

Once she inherits the flat, her aunt Rosamund walks into the trendy room and exclaims, “Oh, my dear, how exotic. I expect to find the whole of the Bloomsbury Set curled up in a corner with a book!” Edith replies, “Michael knew quite a few of them, actually. I met Virginia Woolf in this room, and Lytton Strachey, although he didn’t stay long.” How brilliant is that for setting a scene? Quite, I’d say!