The Edwardian Country House

This column first appeared in the Age on September 21, 2002

By the time Sir John and Lady Olliff-Cooper leave their Edwardian Country House this Sunday (ABC, 7.30pm) they are in tears. The staff certainly isn't, and after 3 months of working from 6.00am till 10pm under strict supervision, they are more than happy to take their stiff collars off and put their leather jackets on. This series, which has been running for the last five weeks, and finishes this weekend, is Big Brother meets BBC costume drama though it is much more interesting than the former.

Lovers of the humiliation model of TV can watch to see who will crack first (understandably it's the scullery maids - the first two last a few days each and then decide not even fame and fortune is worth this much hard work). But you also learn a lot about the British class system and this gives The Edwardian Country House the power to compel, just as it held Robert Altman's Gosford Park together.

What it was like to work 16-hour days every day of the week, with even those 8 hours off strictly monitored to ensure no intimacy takes place? The food was poor, the working conditions dangerous, the pay low, and the rate of alcoholism high. There is a lot of talk about how much better things are now than they were then, which to me is the nub of the show.

Those who think unions served no purpose have only to consider how worker's conditions have improved over the last 100 years to recognise the danger of current industrial relations policies for more vulnerable workers. When one reads about the expectations large corporations have of their staff -the hours they are expected to work, the rhetoric that the workplace is akin to 'family', the acceptance of invasions of privacy such as having phone calls monitored and emails read - it doesn't feel quite as different to those big old country houses of yore.

While conclusions about the real world can be drawn from this show though, to call it 'Reality TV' is dubious. The cast may be volunteers chosen from over 8000 people but there is no doubt they are acting at times (pretty well, too) and that the events that unfold are, to some extent, scripted. In this episode look out for the 'fight' between Monsieur Dubiard the Chef and the master of the house Sir John Cooper. Then there is the use of one of the upstairs bedrooms for a bit of nude action between Kenny the Hallboy and Ellen, the only scullery maid who stayed the course.

Actually, you have to wonder how any of these shows - Survivor, Big Brother or Temptation Island - can lay claim to be 'real'. With cameras, prizes and fantasies of stardom affecting everyone's behaviour they are a genre like any other. If you want realism, watch a Ken Loach film.

All of the cast look remarkable true to type, with the possible exception of the tutor Mr Raj-Singh who is so camp I felt he might have worked better on Benny Hill. The footman Charlie and Rob are spunky and the cast members who most often allow their real selves to break through. My favourite was Dubiard who was clearly mad in an ahistorical fashion. French chefs yelling at their staff is as common now as it was then and it is clear that it is his passion for cooking rather than a fetish for history and fame that has thrown him into the cast. (And I suspect not that many of the volunteers had trained at Maxims.) It is the upstairs folk who are a disappointment. They are downright boring.

The star of the show, Butler Mr Edgar (normally a 64 year-old architect from Surrey) plays the bad guy with conviction. By the end, of course, he has softened. Hierarchy, he tells us, works to some extent but it stops communication and therefore truth. His final conclusion: 'Without truth society is sick.'

Posted by Sophie at 09:54 AM