Watch Secrets of the Manor House – Preview on PBS. See more from Secrets of the Manor House.

Secrets of the Manor House premieres Sunday, January 22, 2012.

Exactly 100 years ago, the world of the British manor house was at its height. It was a life of luxury and indolence for a wealthy few supported by the labor of hundreds of servants toiling ceaselessly “below stairs” to make the lives of their lords and ladies run as smoothly as possible. It is a world that has provided a majestic backdrop to a range of movies and popular costume dramas to this day.
But what was really going on behind these stately walls? Secrets of the Manor House looks beyond the fiction to the truth of what life was like in these ancient British houses. They were communities where two separate worlds existed side by side: the poor worked as domestic servants, while the nation’s wealthiest families enjoyed a lifestyle of luxury, and aristocrats ruled over their servants as they had done for a thousand years.

The program talks to present-day British lords and ladies and to the descendants of those who lived and worked in manor houses across the country. A series of expert historians (Lawrence James, the author of The Illustrated Rise and Fall of the British Empire and Dr. Elizabeth Kehoe, the author of Fortune’s Daughters: The Extravagant Lives of the Jerome Sisters) explain the true picture of how life was lived within the walls of these stately homes that had changed very little for centuries. It explains the hierarchy of the British establishment: led by the king with a supporting cast of dukes, earls and barons, each keenly aware of his or her place. It visits modern manor houses, where aristocratic families sometimes still rule over scores of servants, in homes with 100 and more bedrooms, and where the lord still enjoys a luxurious life of hunting, shooting and fishing among the beauty of rural Britain. And it details the true hardship of life as a “downstairs” servant: maids would carry 45 gallons of hot water along hidden servants’ passageways to fill one aristocratic lady’s bath, and a housemaid’s day would start before dawn and last for 17 hours as she scrubbed floors, cleaned grates and carried coal — all for a wage of $15 a year.

But, precisely a century ago, a perfect storm of financial hardship and political and social change was threatening to engulf this traditional British way of life. Some impoverished British aristocrats married wealthy American heiresses to prop up and sustain their fading manor houses; the working classes were finding a voice and demanding both political power and better jobs; and the terrible disaster of World War I was looming in the wings. When war came, nothing in the life of the British manor house was ever the same again.

Secrets of the Manor House was produced by Pioneer Productions.

From Entertainment.ie and WENN.com

Read more about Titanic: Blood and Steel here

From Spoiler TV

Episode: 1 of 8

Sunday, 18 September 2011, 9:00PM – 10:30PM

The Great War unsettles life at Downton and Isobel’s surprising news about Matthew rocks the family further. New maid, Ethel ruffles O’Brien’s feathers and Bates returns with life changing news for Anna.

The combat spoilers and speculation ITV has taken down its detailed synopsis of the first episode. To conform with this, as well as help those who dislike spoilers, I have amended this post as well. However, if you can’t help yourself, here’s a peek! Also, keep watching the other post about the second series–I am constantly updating it with new articles.

News of Julian Fellowes’ Titanic mini-series for ITV was met with much fanfare and discussion, but the BBC had also quietly commissioned its own 12 part mini-series, this time focusing on the actual construction of the R.M.S. Titanic from 1897 to its maiden voyage in 1912. Titanic: Blood & Steel is produced by Guido deAngelis and directed by Ciarán Donnelly (The Tudors, Cold Feet) and co-producer, by Paul Myler of Epos Films. Cast members (both confirmed and unconfirmed) include James Gandolfini as J.P. Morgan, Kevin Zegers as Mark Muir, and Ophelia Lovibond as Kitty Carlton. More information at IMDb and The Irish Film and Television Network.

Update: Chris Noth (Sex and the City, Law & Order) has been cast as J. P. Morgan!
10/4 Update: Rumor is that the BBC won’t be airing this mini-series next year.

Kevin Zegers & Neve Campbell: ‘Titanic’ Photo Call! – Just Jared
‘Titanic – Blood and Steel’ sails into Dublin, filming in Dublin until December 17th – The Irish Film & Television Network
BBC sets sail for Titanic struggle against Julian Fellowes – The Telegraph
Titanic: Blood and Steel Adds Chris Noth and Neve Campbell – Movieweb
‘Titanic: Blood & Steel’ Gerard McCarthy Q&A: It’s not about a sinking – Digital Spy
Downton Abbey’s Maria Doyle Kennedy lands icy role in Titanic: Blood and Steel – Herald.ie
Titanic: Blood and Steel shooting on location in Dublin – Entertainment.ie
‘Extra’ cash for Bollywood dancers and Titanic dockers – Belfast Telegraph
Lights, camera, action! Movie crews take over the streets of the capital – Independent.ie

Titanic: Blood and Steel

CNN will present the HBO documentary TRIANGLE: REMEMBERING THE FIRE this SATURDAY, MARCH 26 at 11:00 p.m. (ET)/8:00 p.m. (PT), it was announced jointly today by HBO and CNN.

TRIANGLE: REMEMBERING THE FIRE tells an historic story that is still relevant today. On March 25, 1911, a catastrophic fire broke out at the Triangle Waist Company in New York City. Trapped inside the upper floors of a ten-story building, 146 workers – mostly young immigrant women and teenage girls – were burned alive or forced to jump to their deaths to escape an inferno that consumed the factory in just 18 minutes. It was the worst disaster at a workplace in New York State until 9/11. The tragedy changed the course of history, paving the way for government to represent working people, not just business, for the first time, and helped an emerging American middle class to live the American Dream.

TRIANGLE: REMEMBERING THE FIRE, which debuted March 21 on HBO, was directed by Daphne Pinkerson; produced by Daphne Pinkerson and Marc Levin; written by Michael Hirsch, Richard Lowe and Daphne Pinkerson; scenes from “The Triangle Factory Fire Scandal” directed by Mel Stuart. For HBO: senior producer, Nancy Abraham; executive producer, Sheila Nevins.

Official HBO Website

Olympic (left) and Titanic on March 6, 1912 at Harland & Wolff

From the BBC:

Downton Abbey and Gosford Park creator Julian Fellowes is to write a TV mini-series about the 1912 sinking of the Titanic, to air next year on ITV1.

The series – set to start filming in Hungary this spring – will mark the centenary of the liner’s demise.

Titanic will be “the must-see original drama for this landmark centenary anniversary,” said Maria Kyriacou, of ITV Studios Global Entertainment.

Dame Helen Mirren and Romola Garai have been linked to roles in the drama.

Viewers will be taken on a “heart-wrenching journey through Titanic’s last hours,” pledged ITV in a statement.

The six-part series, it said, would combine “action, mystery and romantic plot lines” and feature both fictional and historical characters.

The ship – claimed to be unsinkable by its builders – sank after hitting an iceberg on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic in April 1912.

The programme will also be screened in the United States [Link to Deadline] and Australia.

Fellowes – who became Lord Fellowes of West Stafford last November – enjoyed success with Downton Abbey last year.

The first episode of the lavish period drama began with news of the Titanic’s sinking.

I speculated that Fellowes could add the doomed Crawley cousins to the cast of characters in this mini-series, but what do you think? Will it do justice to the tragic maiden crossing of the ocean liner? Can anyone—even the talented Fellowes—ever shake the image of Leo and Kate embracing on Titanic’s bow? Has anyone seen the 1996 CBS series starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Peter Gallagher?

From BBC1: Turn Back Time – The High Street where a group of shop-keeping families are transported back to the birth of the high street in the 1870s, and propelled through a century of change, right up to the modern era and the 1970s.

Starts November 2, 2010 at 9 PM.

Telegraph article

BBC: Hands on History

Written by Emma Frost, the 90 minute drama will interweave the stories of three very different women to shed light on the impact and influence the books had on women’s lives over the last century.

The first story features Mary (Jodie Whittaker), wife of Charles Boon (Daniel Mays), the wheeler-dealer co-founder of the publishing imprint with his staunch business partner and trusted friend Gerald Mills (Patrick Kennedy).

Whilst their book business fought to be original and successful in 1908 London, at home a very different battle raged between Mary and Charles – a battle fought in the bedroom, which would define the course of publishing history as Mills & Boon decide to take a chance on their low-brow, high-romance genre.

Second is the tale of Janet Bottomley (Olivia Colman), an ordinary spinster devoted to her ailing mother, but at the expense of herself. Janet’s life takes a U-turn when she meets a devastatingly, handsome consultant (Patrick Baladi) who must operate on her mother. Triggering Janet’s fantastical yearning for romance, a comedy of errors ensues, changing her world forever.

Finally, Kirstie’s story brings the experience of Mills & Boon up-to-date. A university lecturer in literature and feminist studies, Kirstie (TBC) is in a stagnating relationship with her partner Nick. Thwarted, bored and frustrated, she is lecturing to students on Mills & Boon and its place in our canon, when a young stranger enters her life.[BBC Press Release]

Though many articles and press releases focus on the “salaciousness” of the romance genre (the hopelessly outdated phrase, “bodice ripper”!), here’s to a hour and a half of celebration of the rightful role romance novels (and Mills & Boon) have in not only the lives of women, but the literary canon.