Upstairs, Downstairs: Downton Abbey support group will reconvene in Morristown on June 13

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Hard to believe it’s June already. Only six more months until Downton Abbey returns!

The Morristown & Township Library will try to keep the pot boiling on June 13, 2013, when it contrasts the PBS hit series with Upstairs, Downstairs, another epic look at the British class system that premiered in the 1970s.

This meeting of the Downtown Abbey Support Group convenes at 7 pm.  It’s free, light refreshments will be served, and period costumes, as always, are welcome.

Gary Carr, the newest cast member on 'Downtown Abbey,' will play a 1920s jazz musician.
Gary Carr, the newest cast member on 'Downtown Abbey,' will play a 1920s jazz musician.

And to give DA fans even more to chew on, here is a fascinating discussion about  the role of race in English nobility.

Author Pearl Duncan, an African American, notes that Downtown Abbey will introduce a black character–a jazz musician–next season.

She ponders whether the series is missing an opportunity to use this character (played by Gary Carr, the star of the BBC mystery Death in Paradise) to delve deeper into the complex story of race in England.

Pearl asserts that much of the wealth that built England’s great estates was amassed from Caribbean plantations; yet British laws prohibited black sons of British aristocrats from inheriting their fortunes.

Sounds like the support group will have plenty to talk about.  Here’s the library’s announcement:

FROM THE MORRISTOWN & TOWNSHIP LIBRARY:

Downton Abbey: Best Hoity-Toity, British, Aristocratic, BBC-aired, White-gloved, PBS-borrowed, Servant-minded, Yet Full-of-Scandal, Show Ever?

Sponsored by the Library’s Downton Abbey Support Group
June 13, 2013, 7 p.m.

MORRISTOWN, NJ— Downton Abbey certainly HAS to be the best show ever to accurately demonstrate the essence of the British privileged class while still showing the bustling life and times of the servants who make it all happen, right?  Well, NOT so fast!   On Thursday evening, June 13 at 7:00 p.m., The Morristown & Morris Township Library’s Downton Abbey Support Group (to support the show’s fans during the long breaks between new episodes) will be providing this for debate at its next program.  Come and join the Library staff as we delve into the series Upstairs, Downstairs from the 1970s, and as the group compares the two series that look at British titled gentry from the early part of the twentieth century.  Tea and scones will be served along with a lot of conversation about which butler has the sharper eye for detail: Mr. Angus Hudson or Mr. Charles Carson and which series had the more scandalous marriage!  Period costume is always welcome, but not required.

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