Downton Abbey’s X Factor… Why do people love Downton Abbey?

The week Downton Abbey returned to our screens in the UK, the viewers perception was captured on the UK TV programme, Gogglebox. It was really interesting to hear what people said, to help try to work out – what is the X factor in Downton Abbey? Why have so many people fallen for the show?

Viewers were captured on camera as it began saying things like “Oh… Downton Abbey…” “I love it…” “We’ve been waiting all summer for this…” “It’s lovely to have our friends back…” “It’s just like a warm hug…” “It’s just a lovely programme…”

So people enjoy it… but why, why Downton Abbey and not another programme? What does it bring to the historical genre that other show’s haven’t? WHAT is the magic, the X gene in Downton’s DNA that makes some people love the show?

The Gogglebox viewers gave some clues, they asked questions of each other like, “What do they do as a job?” The lover of the show’s answer was… “Well they don’t really, they have dinner parties…” they then went on to say “Oh but they do have land,” and they mentioned “shares”.

“It’s all about love and stuff…” Another person described – although if you look at the story lines it has just as much been about death and hardship but then loss is still about love.

Then in families where some were lovers of the show and some were not, conversations debated a scene between Lady Mary and her latest admirer. It was interesting then to see how people emotionally engaged with the scenes. Earlier people had talked about the characters as ‘our friends’ well now you hear different viewers talking about characters like they are truly people they know and have a personal relationship with… “I can see something starting here…” She’s quite uptight, Lady Mary, isn’t she…” Then Lady Mary’s beau offered to “make your life simpler…” “How much simpler can it get… she has people to do everything…”

Then there was the scene where a fire began in the house, which started in Edith’s room. “Please God say they don’t kill Edith,” a young man shouted out. Then there was a close up on the eyes of one of the viewers and the look in her eyes said she was completely and utterly absorbed in the programme, she was emotionally connected to the characters and the scene as it played out. I shan’t tell you what happened I wouldn’t want to spoil it for viewers in America, but the body language of those watching the scene was fascinating…

How does Downton Abbey do it?

Well, their priority is not to get every fact of the historical setting correct. I have heard historians pull the scenes and the story lines to pieces, it is not at all historically or factually based – it is firstly fiction, and secondly a drama – I heard the person who helped the story developer for the film RUSH (something completely different – and I know not historical in the terms people think of historical) but it was someone who knew the fact behind the story, and he said, when he complained that the film wasn’t really about what actually happened “they told me they weren’t making a documentary they were making a film.” Like wise the director of Downton Abbey isn’t make a documentary, but making a drama… something they want to pull people into at an emotional level not an intellectual level.

Some of the viewers on Gogglebox did challenge the facts about the show they watched, “As if he’d be fighting the fire himself… he’d be watching…” “Did they have a fire service then? They got there a bit quick…” They got there a bit quick because the programme is only an hour-long and if the fire service are going to arrive they need to arrive in the time allowance of the programme without dragging out a boring – the fire service are coming – or we’re waiting for the fire service – stage in the story… 😀

So this is the X Factor that I pull through into my historical books…

1. I don’t make the priority in my books the historical fact – I don’t worry about exact, historically correct, language, people may not even know the words people used in the past, one of the things about Downton is its accessibility to anyone, it gives people the sense and feel of a historical setting, but it does not push people away by using words they don’t know or situations and characters they can’t relate to. Primarily people need to understand the characters, and understand how they feel and what they say.

2.So I focus primarily on the characters I create. I want people to feel as emotionally engaged with my characters as people do with the Downton Characters… and I hope for those readers who love to be lost in a historical setting… I’ve achieved that… One reviewer said to me, when she read The Illicit Love of a Courtesan, when Ellen gripped her dress, I actually gripped my maxi dress as if I was going to climb up onto the horse with her… That made me feel like I was doing something right, and the viewers of Downton seem to connect with the story to that degree.

3. I create settings that allow people to feel as though they are escaping reality, “they have dinner parties…” “It’s all about love and stuff…” “How could you make her life simpler…” the story lines are about more than the viewers perception but because it steps them so far away from their reality, it is like a fairytale… and people still aspire to fairytales even in the 21st Century, so even though they are travelling through a story in which bad things occur, they still connect with the story as an ideal they aspire to.

So those are the three elements I would say are the genetics which create the X Factor for Downton – Historical Fiction not fact – Characters who are easy to connect with – Settings that allow people to completely escape their reality…

If you would like to discover how I try to translate that in books then The Desperate Love of a Lord, A Free Novella, is now available as a taster, and if you are quick, the Marlow series is currently discounted in both the USA and UK from $1.99 in the USA and 69p in the UK… Click on the covers in the side bar to view on Amazon.

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the story of the real courtesan who inspired The Illicit Love of a Courtesan

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Jane Lark is a writer of authentic, passionate and emotional Historical and New Adult Romance stories, and the author of a No.1 bestselling Historical Romance novel in America, ‘The Illicit Love of a Courtesan’.

Click here to find out more about Jane’s books, and see Jane’s website www.janelark.co.uk to learn more about Jane. Or click ‘like’ on Jane’s Facebook page to see photo’s and learn historical facts from the Georgian, Regency and Victorian eras, which Jane publishes there. You can also follow Jane on twitter at @janelark

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Lady Caroline Lamb’s whole disgraceful truth… Part eleven ~ The Proposal

As I said last week, fate began to play a new hand in Caroline’s life at the end of 1804. William Lamb’s older brother Peniston became seriously ill, he was dying of consumption and William grasped his moment to propose to Caroline. but before I tell you the tale, here is the background to this series of posts, as always and if you have read it before please skip to the end of the italics where I have marked the type in bold.

I was drawn to Lady Caroline Lamb, who lived in the Regency era, because Harriette Wilson the courtesan who wrote her memoirs in 1825, mentions the Ponsonby and the Lamb family frequently. Also the story of Caroline’s affair with Lord Byron captured my imagination. Caroline was also a writer, she wrote poems, and novels in her later life. I have read Glenarvon.

Her life story and her letters sucked me further into the reality of the Regency world which is rarely found in modern-day books. Jane Austen wrote fictional, ‘country’ life as she called it, and I want to write fictional ‘Regency’ life rather than simply romance. But what I love when I discover gems in my research like Caroline’s story is sharing the real story behind my fiction here too.

Lady Caroline Lamb was born Caroline Ponsonby, on the 13^th November 1785. She was the daughter of Frederick Ponsonby, Viscount Duncannon, and Henrietta (known as Harriet), the sister of the infamous Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.

Caroline became an official lady when her grandfather died, and her father became Earl of Bessborough earning her the honorific title ‘Lady’ and she grew up in a world of luxury, even Marie Antoinette was a family friend. Caroline was always renowned as being lively, and now it is suspected she had a condition called bipolar. As a child she earned herself a title as a ‘brat’, by such things as telling her aunt Georgiana that Edward Gibbon’s (the author of The Decline and fall of the Roman Empire) face was ‘so ugly it had frightened her puppy’.

And when she grew up Byron once described Caroline as “the cleverest most agreeable, absurd, amiable, perplexing, dangerous fascinating little being that lives now or ought to have lived 2000 years ago.”

William had been harbouring a desire for Caorline for years by this point, and he must have seen other suitors lining up for their moment to offer. Caro was from one of the most renowned and oldest families, and her family were even considering a match with a prince… So William grasped a chance to offer for her now, at least knowing he would likely become a peer.

Caroline refused him, though.

As Peniston became more seriously ill, William’s mother scandalously allowed his mistress to stay in their family home, to give him some comfort. He died on January 4th 1805, leaving William the heir to the Melbourne title and fortune. This however was not a straightforward step, because William was illegitimate. Peniston had been Lord Melbourne’s only legitimate child, and although Lord Melbourne had given his wife’s other sons his name, he knew they were not his. He therefore refused to recognize William as his heir in any unofficial capacity, even though to the world William was his son… (So you see the other way these high status families managed their copious by-blows, they either passed them off to others, or persuaded husbands and wives to treat them as legitimate)

While the Lamb family were creating scandal and enduring sadness, Caro’s family were spinning up a storm of scandal as usual. Caro’s mother wrote to her lover about a letter, sent to Caroline, which contained ‘every gross, disgusting indecency that the most deprav’d imagination could suggest‘ and in case Caro should not understand the innuendo, the author had explained everything in detail… What was worse was the letter contained details which indicated that the person knew the family, and it referred to a conversation Caro had participated in with her aunt Georgiana. The rest of the family went on to be bombarded with horrible letters, and even worse an editor from the Morning Post showed Harriet letters that he received on a daily basis pouring out scandal about the family. It was then that Harriet recognized the writing as one of her former lovers.

Harriet and Georgiana in the end silenced the author by publishing a response in the paper…

Shame to the pen whose coward poisons flow

In secret streams with baneful malice fraught

That emulates th’ assassin’s Midnight blow,

by hate directed and my vengeance wrought.

Yet generous mind the name will ne’re reveal,

Tho’ known! nor deign a stigma to impart,

But leave the dastard miscreant to feel

The conscious pangs of corrupted heart.

That letters did cease not long after this was published.

Meanwhile, eventually, Lord Melbourne was persuaded by his wife to settle an allowance on William and recognize him as the future Earl, but instead of setting an allowance of £5,000 on William, Lord Melbourne only allowed him £1,800 – yet that was enough for William to provide for a wife and so on May 1st he repeated his proposal to Caroline.

‘I have loved you for four years, loved you deeply, dearly, faithfully – so faithfully that my love has withstood with firm determination to conquer it when honour forbade my declaring myself – has withstood all that absence, variety of objects, my own endeavours to seek and like others, or to occupy my mind with fix’d attention to my profession, could do to shake it‘

His heartfelt words convinced Caroline to plead the acceptance of her parents, and on the 2nd of May Harriet wrote to her lover.

‘I have long foreseen and endeavoured to avoid what has just happened – Wm Lamb’s proposing to her but she likes him too much for me to do more than entreat a little further acquaintance on both sides, (that line make’s me wonder if the only reason Caro refused the previous year was on the advice of her mother – she says further) and not have this declared immediately, which precludes all possibility of retreat. In some things I like it. He has a thousand good qualities, is very clever, which is absolutely necessary for her; and above all she has preferred him from childhood, and is now so much in love with him that before his speaking . I dreaded it affecting her health. But on the other hand, I dislike the connection extremely. I dislike his manners, and still more his principles and his creed,or rather no creed. Yet to her his behaviour has been honourable and his letter is beautiful.‘

I love that Harriet criticizes his principles… when we KNOW hers… But I also love that she thinks his letter beautiful…

The story continues next week… Yes, I am going to leave in suspense until then…