Book Review - John Hawkesworth's Upstairs Downstairs
Upstairs Downstairs by John Hawkesworth
Published by: Nelson Doubleday
Publication Date: 1971
Format: Hardcover, 243 Pages
Rating: ★★★
Out of Print
165 Eaton Place sits on the North side of the street in Belgravia. Above stairs there's Richard Bellamy, a conservative MP, and his wife Lady Marjorie. There two children are no longer at home with James in the Life Guards and Elizabeth at a finishing school in Dresden, Germany. Below stairs there's the butler, Hudson, and the cook, Mrs. Bridges. Under them are Alfred the footman, Rose the houseparlourmaid, and Emily the kitchen maid. The downstairs staff is completed by Miss Roberts, Lady Marjorie's Lady's Maid, and Mr. Pearce the chauffeur. The household are in need of an under houseparlourmaid after the last one came to a bad end. Lady Marjorie is interviewing one Clemence Dumas whom most of the staff are rooting against. Except Emily, but she's a romantic, and the tall tales Clemence spins have already won over the kitchen maid. Against all expectations Lady Marjorie takes on Clemence, rechristened Sarah, for a trial period. Almost at once she's causing a scandal by sitting for a portrait for the same artist that is painting Lady Marjorie. The painting of "the maids" is so salacious juxtaposed with the more traditional portrait of Lady Marjorie that the news is actually picked up by the local papers. Though it wouldn't be proper to send Sarah packing because of her naivete for trusting a painter the Bellamys themselves shouldn't have trusted. Thankfully they luck out soon enough when they are away for the summer and the servants play at masters and James Bellamy arrives home. A charged moment between him and Sarah makes her realize that she doesn't want to exist to prop up the lives of others, she wants to live her own life. A desire that may come back to haunt her. But for the Bellamys life goes on, Elizabeth returns from abroad, nowhere near as finished as they'd hoped and wanting to talk about German philosophers with everyone. A lady should only talk about the weather and never about politics, especially to politicians. Her behavior soon has her banished by her family from London. And despite their actions their dearest wish is that Elizabeth would be happy, so she comes and goes, trying to make a place for herself in society. But when the first man she falls for was using her as a pawn to get to her father and then runs off with the footman, she thinks that her love life is doomed. All is not lost. Not for her parents or for Elizabeth herself when she falls in with revolutionaries and meets the poet Lawrence Kirbridge. After much trial and tribulation, both for the masters and the servants, maybe an approximation of a happy ending is on the horizon. Though with Sarah back on the scene and stepping out with James the happy ending depends on your point of view.
If you're a fan of the original Upstairs, Downstairs I know the question on the tip of your tongue, and it's who the hell are these people on the cover of this book!?! It's like someone asked AI what the cast of Upstairs, Downstairs looked liked and this weird amalgamation of seventies business suits and mobcaps was churned out. But I can assure you, this is the real cover because I actually scanned it into the computer myself from my copy. My guess is that they were trying to lure in readers who weren't aware of the television show and therefore have these generic models because Richard Bellamy sure as hell wouldn't show that much ankle. Yet the selling point in the United States should have been that you could read the first season as it was meant to air, minus episode six, "A Cry for Help," and episode eleven, "The Swedish Tiger." Because when Upstairs, Downstairs first aired in the United States in 1973 what was shown was a weird hybrid of season one and season two where the twenty-six episodes where reduced down to thirteen. Obviously some of this had to do with the fact that the first six episodes were in black and white because of the Colour Strike with only the pilot being reshot for color. But still, that is A LOT of story to omit. So American audiences could have turned to this book written by John Hawkesworth, who turned Jean Marsh and Eileen Atkins's idea into the beloved show and produced the series and wrote twelve episodes of it as well. But the thing is, John Hawkesworth wasn't an author he was a screenwriter, so this book comes across more like a script treatment, where the dialogue is bulked out with minimal descriptors. So there's no insight and without the actors imbuing their characters with life they come across as flat and unlikable. In fact the omission of "A Cry for Help" in particular was detrimental to the understanding of Richard Bellamy's character. This lack of insight made the book feel more antagonistic, more us versus them instead of one household working together. What did work was the added history. Upstairs, Downstairs was known for it's incorporation of historical events, which occasionally verged on the preachy side with their teachable moments. I know everyone seems to love the episode "A Patriotic Offering" about Belgian refugees, but I've never liked it, mainly because of Hudson's racism. Though overall the extra bit of background, especially about the dreadnoughts, was welcomed. This is just such an odd book because it flattens some aspects and invigorates others, especially when the characters are away from the house. But in the end the problem is there is no arc to the book because there was no arc to the show. This book makes me simultaneously want to binge the show once more but also to never watch it again. It shows the ups and downs of the series rather well and, well, by the end of the book you could see even John Hawkesworth wanted it to come to an end as the episode dramatizations got shorter and brusquer. He just wanted it over with and regrettably so did I.
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