With the news that the DOWNTON ABBEY sequel movie release has now been postponed until March 2022 (Quelle horror!) there is some good news afoot for all those who love period dramas about the very very rich. Julian Fellows, who himself is a Peer of The Realm (i.e. h’s Lord Fellows) and who created Downton Abbey winning him several awards accolades and no doubt a wee pile of money too, has been very busy at work with a new project.
He has created a brand new TV series for HBO that is a period drama about the conflict of American aristocracy with the arrival of nouvelle wealth. The Gilded Age was an era that occurred during the late 19th century, from the 1870s to about 1900. It was a time of rapid economic growth mainly in New York and became a pejorative term for a time of materialistic excesses combined with extreme poverty.
When asked by the LA Times about why he was so fascinated with this particular period in history Fellowes replied “these people were extraordinary. You can see why they frightened the old guard, because they saw no boundaries. If they wanted to build a palace, they built a palace. If they wanted to buy a yacht, they bought a yacht. And the old guard in New York wasn’t like that at all, and suddenly this whirlwind of couture descended on their heads. They redesigned being rich. They created a rich culture that we still have—people who are rich are rich in a way that was established in America in the 1880s, ’90s, 1900s. It was different from Europe. Something like Newport would never have happened in any other country.”
Downton’s Dowager Countess of Grantham would be horrified by them all, but we will so lap it up. If for nothing else than to see the fabulous Christine Baranski play the wonderfully pretentious old-school Agnes Van Rhijn. The star-studded cast also includes Cynthia Nixon, Audra McDonald, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Michael Cerveris, Bill Irwin, Debra Monk, Kelli O’Hara, Donna Murphy, Morgan Spector, and the very cute (!) Harry Richardson.
The Gilded Age premieres on January 22nd 2022 https://www.hbo.com/the-gilded-age
