{"product_id":"upstairs-and-downstairs-9781442244825","title":"Upstairs and Downstairs","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe international success of Downton Abbey has led to a revived interest in period dramas, with older programs like The Forsyte Saga being rediscovered by a new generation of fans whose tastes also include grittier fare like Ripper Street. Though often criticized as a form of escapist, conservative nostalgia, these shows can also provide a lens to examine the class and gender politics of both the past and present.In Upstairs and Downstairs: British Costume Drama Television from The Forsyte Saga to Downton Abbey, James Leggott and Julie Anne Taddeo provide a collection of essays that analyze key developments in the history of period dramas  from the late 1960s to the present day. Contributors explore such issues as how the genre fulfills and disrupts notions of quality television, the process of adaptation, the relationship between UK and U.S. television, and the connection between the period drama and wider developments in TV and popular culture. Additional essays examine how fans shap\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA central aim of this book is to follow the evolution of British costume dramas, from the varying approaches to the history and heritage they represent to the sexual politics of feminism, homosexuality, and fandom.  Part 1 introduces a range of possible conceptual approaches in highlighting the changing British social and cultural contexts of both production and audience preferences.  Part 2 examines the historical accuracy of ‘heritage’ productions, including their gender and class roles, and challenges the models of the past as they reveal anxieties about national identity, multiculturalism, and masculinity.  Part 3 moves the narrative from the domestic customs and morality of past decades into viewers' contemporary concerns and issues.  Some of the BBC and ITV series under discussion may not be familiar to readers in the US, even those who are viewers of PBS fare or video-on-demand offerings, but even so there is much to be gained in traversing the critiques of music, fashions, costumes, and historicity in unwatched series and issues embedded in their texts.  Given the present staggering popularity of Downton Abbey, both in the UK and globally, the present study is timely and provides a valuable grounding for a genre that is applauded around the world as one of Britain's masterful contributions to quality television. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. * CHOICE *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eForeword, Jerome de Groot Acknowledgments Introduction, James Leggott and Julie Anne Taddeo PART I: APPROACHES TO THE COSTUME DRAMA  Chapter 1: Pageantry and Populism, Democratization and Dissent: The Forgotten 1970s  Claire Monk Chapter 2: History’s Drama: Narrative Space in “Golden Age” British Television Drama Tom Bragg Chapter 3: “It’s not clever, it’s not funny, and it’s not period!”: Costume Comedy and British Television James Leggott Chapter 4: “It is but a glimpse of the world of fashion”: British Costume Drama, Dickens, and Serialization Marc Napolitano Chapter 5: Neverending Stories?:The Paradise and the Period Drama Series Benjamin Poore Chapter 6: Epistolarity and Masculinity in Andrew Davies's Trollope Adaptations Ellen Moody Chapter 7: “What are we going to do with Uncle Arthur?”: Music in the British Serialized Period Drama Scott Strovas and Karen Beth Strovas PART II: THE COSTUME DRAMA, HISTORY, AND HERITAGE Chapter 8: British Historical Drama and the Middle Ages Andrew B.R. Elliott Chapter 9: Desacralizing the Icon:  Elizabeth I and Television Sabrina Alcorn Baron Chapter 10: “It’s not the navy—we don’t stand back to stand upwards”: The Onedin Line and the Changing Waters of British Maritime Identity Mark Fryers Chapter 11: Good-Bye to All That: Piece of Cake, Danger UXB, and the Second World War A. Bowdoin Van Riper Chapter 12: Upstairs, Downstairs (2010-2012) and Narratives of Domestic and Foreign Appeasement Giselle Bastin Chapter 13: Downton Abbey and Heritage Katherine Byrne Chapter 14: Experimentation and Post-Heritage in Contemporary TV Drama: Parade’s End Stella Hockenhull PART III: THE COSTUME DRAMA, SEXUAL POLITICS, AND FANDOM Chapter 15: “Why don’t you take her?”: Rape in the Poldark Narrative Julie Anne Taddeo Chapter 16: The Imaginative Power of Downton Abbey Fanfiction Andrea Schmidt Chapter 17: This Wonderful Commercial Machine: Gender, Class, and the Pleasures and Spectacle of Shopping in The Paradise and Mr. Selfridge Andrea Wright Chapter 18: Taking a Pregnant Pause: Interrogating the Feminist Potential of Call the Midwife Louise FitzGerald Chapter 19: Queer Lives: Representation and Reinterpretation in Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey Lucy Brown Chapter 20: Troubled by Violence: Transnational Complexity and the Critique of Masculinity in Ripper Street Elke Weissmann Index About the Editors and Contributors","brand":"Rowman \u0026 Littlefield","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51039927632215,"sku":"9781442244825","price":72.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781442244825.jpg?v=1750945269","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/upstairs-and-downstairs-9781442244825","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}