False Memory Syndrome
In challenging times Britons seek comfort in a past that never existed. Tim Stanley shatters their illusions.
You can tell a lot about a people from the television programmes they watch during a recession. While Americans often resort to Armageddon (The Walking Dead, Falling Skies), Britons tend to indulge in nostalgia. In the recession of the 1980s it was Brideshead Revisited; during the downturn of the 1990s it was The Darling Buds of May. Today it feels like everyone has fallen in love with ITV’s Downton Abbey. Everyone except me.
Depicting the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family in Edwardian England, Downton Abbey is more of a well-informed soap than a piece of serious historical drama. The plot is pure Coronation Street, while the dialogue feels as if it is culled from Wikipedia (it’s not uncommon for a character to exclaim something like ‘I thought the Titanic was supposed be unsinkable?’). The careful viewer can occasionally spot double yellow lines in the roads or TV aerials on the chimneys.
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