The Paradise is back for a new series!!

 

 

 The Paradise is an Edwardian drama for our times. It’s about ordinary people that face the same issues as ordinary people today: smaller businesses struggling to compete with huge corporations, people moving out of the rural areas to look for work in the cities, how difficult it can be to find one’s place in a working environment and all the quirky stories, dramas and human struggles that can occur in any workplace.

 

 

When the resourceful and spirited Denise (Joanna Vanderham) moves to the city hoping to gain a place at her uncle’s draper’s shop, she finds him too poor to take her on: the great department store The Paradise has quite literally sucked the lifeblood from small local businesses and has plunged many people into poverty.  Desperate for work, Denise is soon forced to break her uncle’s heart by accepting a job there as a salesgirl and is plunged into a dizzyingly beautiful world of prettiness that is contrasted by an almost labyrinthine subterranean ‘downstairs’ where she lives with her fellow employees, many adorable, like the sweet and rather bumbling Pauline (Ruby Bentall), many just plain creepy, like the cruel-faced Clara (Sonya Cassidy) who begins plotting Denise’s downfall from the moment they meet.

Happily, Denise isn’t the kind of girl who allows herself to be trampled underfoot: she’s confident, bold, perhaps even reckless; she knows how to stand up for herself and possesses the kind of poise that cannot be taught, whether she’s arguing with a fellow staff member or selling a dress to a customer who considers herself to be above shopping at all. It’s wonderful to finally have a working-class heroine in a drama like this: she’s not somebody that young female viewers desire to be in their dreams, but somebody whom they can genuinely relate to; whose happiness they have shared and whose misery that have experienced themselves.

Denise is the show’s first embodiment of the beauty that is possible in the condition of the ordinary person, and how it can be just as moving and complex as the condition of the upper classes that tend to dominate the standard Edwardian drama.

Series Two starts tonight!  I wonder what will happen next for Denise and John?

 

Downton Abbey (Christmas Special 2012)

 

 

September 1921. The Crawley family heads north, to Duneagle Castle in Scotland - the ancestral home of The MacClare family - to visit Lady Rose and her warring parents, Susan and Hugh ("Shrimpy"). Bates, Anna, Molesley, and O'Brien also make the trip.

 

 

 

 

Gregson, the man who hired Lady Edith on at the newspaper, tells her that he is going to be in Scotland as well. After Edith informs her family of this Mary and Matthew disagree about Gregson's motives. Gregson later declares his feelings for Edith and hopes to find an ally in Matthew. "Shrimpy" tells Lord Grantham, that he will have to sell his estate because he did not modernise it like Downton and now the money is all gone.

 

Tom remains at Downton with baby Sybil. The staff looks forward to the approaching country fair, and Carson struggles to keep them concentrating on work.

 

 

 

 

A new housemaid, Edna, joins the staff and is quickly fired after Mrs Hughes discovers her getting too close to Tom.

 

 

 

Mrs Patmore becomes involved in a romance, but it does not last as she realises he is only interested in her cooking.

 

 

 

 

At the country fair, the Downton staff win the tug of war. Jimmy is nearly robbed after winning money from betting, but is saved by Thomas, who is beaten in his place. They later agree just to be friends.

 

 

 

 

Lady Mary goes into labour early, rushing home to the local hospital to deliver her baby, a son.

 

 

 

 

 

 Matthew soon joins her to meet his heir. But on the way back to Downton, he is killed in a car accident.  Mary cuddles their baby, unbeknownst to her, now a single mother.

 

 

 

 

 

This episode is so sad. I loved Dan Stevens as Matthew! xx

 

 

Downton Abbey Series Three, Episode Eight

 

September 1920. Downton Abbey's annual cricket match with the village takes place, bringing out Lord Grantham's competitive side.

 

 

Violet's great niece, Lady Rose MacClare—the daughter of Violet's niece, Susan, Marchioness of Flintshire and her husband, Hugh, Marquess of Flintshire—visits. A trip to London reveals that there is more to her than meets the eye: she's a wild girl who likes to drink and party.

 

 

 

Carson controls Thomas's future, and Thomas finds an unlikely ally in Bates.

 

 

 

 Mary and Matthew are keeping secrets from one another. 

 

 

 

I like Mary and Matthew. xx

 

 
 

Downton Abbey Series Three, Episode Seven

September 1920. Bates is freed from prison, to the resentment of Thomas.

 Upon O'Brien's advice, Thomas makes a midnight visit to Jimmy's room and falls into O'Brien's trap.

Branson plans to baptise baby Sybil a Catholic. While Lord Grantham discourages Edith's desire to become a journalist, Violet supports her granddaughter.

Edith comes to London to meet with a magazine editor, and accepts his offer for a weekly column. Branson's drunkard brother comes to Downton. Matthew continues to confront Lord Grantham about the estate's mismanagement, leading to the resignation of the family's long time agent Jarvis.

Tom is appointed as the new family agent upon Violet's suggestion. Miss Sybil Branson is baptised at a Catholic Church in Ripon with the whole Crawley family in presence.

 

 

 

I love the Matthew and Mary scene. I hope Edith finds happiness soon, happy she is sticking up for herself. Thomas is in hot water! Oh dear! xx