Arts And Entertainment

Actress Lesley-Anne Down of the TV program "The Bold and the Beautiful" attends a Festival party during the 47th Monte Carlo Television Festival in Monte Carlo, princedom on June 11, 2007. (UPI Photo/David Silpa) 

NEW YORK, Apr 25 (UPI) -- In an era when programme -- such of it bad -- travels at lightning speed, nation actress Lesley-Anne Down says she thinks grouping ease appreciate the slower measure and lighter tone of her classic drama TV program "Upstairs Downstairs."

The show, which ventilated in 68 episodes from 1971 to 1975, followed the lives of the wealthy Bellamy family, as well as those of the staff who served them, in primeval 20th century London. It was originally planned by actresses Eileen Atkins and Jean Marsh.

A 40th anniversary edition DVD assemblage of the program was recently released. It has more than 25 hours of never-before-seen features, including a five-part documentary titled "The Making of Upstairs Downstairs," and vintage patch and crew interviews from writer Harty's 1970s nation talk show.

"Today, everything is so complicated, so fast," Down, who played Bellamy relation Georgina on "Upstairs Downstairs," told UPI in a recent phone interview.

"I conceive we hit all this, that is immediate, instantaneous," she observed. "Someone dies, it's there on the news. You crapper see what's feat on with horrendous things, such as [the earthquake and tsunami] in Japan, almost instantaneously, and I don't undergo that manlike beings are programmed to accept that category of information, that quantity of information, especially that quantity of horror, every half hour. I conceive it makes grouping see not essential and weak and, backwards then, when 'Upstairs Downstairs' was set, it was a time when life was such simpler. People were important. You could see most of the things that were on the follower ... and that's what the exhibit was about. It was about the people. Now, [dramatic TV] programs, for the most part, are about the news lines, murders, and things of that nature. They're not ultimate anymore. They're traumatic."

The 57-year-old actress, who also starred in the TV miniseries "North and South" and is today a patch member of the clean "The Bold and the Beautiful," said employed on "Upstairs Downstairs" primeval in her career was an extraordinary experience.

"There are destined movies and shows that hit been produced that rattling are not meet perfect, but they are perfect in any particular time period," Down noted. "They don't age. It's not meet the construct that Jean and Eileen had, but the grouping they were serendipitous sufficiency to become into contact with, who then developed, produced, wrote and patch the exhibit and continued in an unbelievable, 110 proportionality artefact to produce the exhibit in such a artefact that everything was perfect. ... They were unconditional sticklers for correct detail and even though it was a clean opera and it dealt with people's lives, it's a lowercase bit aforementioned attractive a skeleton -- which is what clean operas are aforementioned today -- and swing the meat and muscle and fruitful on the skeleton."

While past events were ofttimes used as plot points on the show, Down said it was always the characters and how they acted in destined situations that kept audience tuning in.

"Whether it was the concern dynamical from gas to automobile or the power reaching to dinner ...," Down recalled. "There was an past event or an event that was essential to the day that was a trampoline for the program and then all the characters would jump on the trampoline. It was aforementioned having an ice-cream sundae with threefold fighting toiletries and all the cherries on top, rather than meet the plain cover cream."

Asked if she thinks the program influenced another works, such as the Oscar-winning film "Gosford Park" and TV's "Downton Abbey" -- both of which are also set in nation mansions and study the lives of the kinsfolk and servants who springy there -- Down replied: "I conceive it sealed the artefact for all of those things. I conceive it gave the audience a suffer for things aforementioned that."

So, how does one advise on professionally after employed on a project as primary as "Upstairs Downstairs?"

"I don't conceive you crapper crowning the notoriety of existence involved in something aforementioned that," Down admitted. "Certainly, as far as performing is concerned, I've been meliorate because I was rattling young."

A new version of "Upstairs Downstairs," with Marsh reprising her persona of maid Rose bringing a different aristocratic kinsfolk in the aforementioned concern at 165 Eaton Place, ventilated on PBS three Sun nights this month.

Down said members of her follower club and grouping who study her on Twitter initially told her they wouldn't check the supplement because she's not in it.

"I tweeted back: 'Don't be stupid! Turn it on, enjoy yourselves!'" the actress said with a laugh.

Pressed to handle whether she was approached to endeavor Georgina again, Down exclaimed, "Oh, God, no!

"I conceive they quite reasonably made the selection that it would exclusive be Jean, obviously, and then she got to hit Eileen in it, who was questionable to be in the original, but she [couldn't be because she] was working. There was no reason to hit any of the [other] original patch in [the new edition] because it was 40 years ago. So, I conceive it's not so such that they were feat for the audience that liked the original, but something different, a new audience."

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