WORDS CIARA FORRISTAL
“It’s completely mad how far it’s all come.” For Laura Carmichael and her character Lady Edith in Julian Fellowes’ award-winning costume drama Downton Abbey, their journey and transformation has been a key staple of audiences’ Sunday night viewing for the past four years. “I think the great thing about her is that she has really evolved”, and it is this incremental evolution, which has unfurled throughout the series, in the face of great adversity, disappointment as well as great upheaval in society, that Carmichael’s character and talent have blossomed.
With the advent of the Christmas special, what does Julian Fellowes have in store for Lady Edith? The Christmas episode sees the action move forward since the end of the series with Edith returning home from Switzerland, having gone through with her plan with Aunt Rosamund to put her baby up for adoption. Carmichael states that Edith returns “battered and bruised,” and that the episode will focus on the effect that such a decision and experience will have on her, particularly considering that no solace can be found in the prolonged absence of her lover Michael Gregson. Such a circumstance would have seemed unfathomable to both Lady Edith and audiences alike when the show began initially, with Edith firmly entrenched with the highly Victorian ideals pertaining to marriage and familial duty. Carmichael admitted that Edith “certainly started off a bit spikier”, attributing this hostility particularly towards her older sister Mary as a defence and coping mechanism against the imminent marriage of Mary to Patrick Crawley, heir of Downton, with whom Edith was in love. Was being the middle of three sisters beneficial to understanding the sibling rivalry and dynamic amongst the Crawley sisters? Both Michelle Dockery and Jessica Brown Findlay both have sisters and Carmichael stated that although they have not “got anywhere near as nasty a relationship as the Crawley girls”, they had an immediate connection and had a “shorthand with each other from the beginning”.
However, the tumult of the early twentieth century, Carmichael stated, with the trauma of the First World War and its aftermath, has meant that Edith has had “to adapt and modernize in a way that I didn’t think was natural to her”. With the shortage of eligible young aristocratic men, following The Great War, Edith’s betrothal to and subsequent jilting by Sir Anthony Strallan opens up a new world of possibilities beyond the confines of Downton that had previously been unknown to Edith. Having given up on the idea of marriage, Edith’s pursuit of journalism unexpectedly leads to her meeting newspaper editor Michael Gregson and experiencing a liberating romance that Carmichael stated is “certainly a completely different experience and I think a far more romantic experience for Edith than she’s ever had before”. Is this sense of liberation for Edith connected with her frequent absences from the familial pressures of life at Downton? Carmichael stated that even filming in London “felt like a completely separate life as it would have done for Edith”, and that Edith has been enjoying a slightly more daring lifestyle, mingling and cavorting with those beneath her station and with different life experiences, like that of the Bloomsbury group. It is this distance from the somewhat stifling atmosphere in Downton, which is one of the primary reasons that sees Edith end up in trouble.
Downton Abbey has been a critical success both in the UK and abroad, particularly in the United States, receiving six Primetime Emmy Awards in 2011 and becoming the most nominated of any international television series in the history of the Primetime Emmy Awards (twenty-seven in total). What does Carmichael attribute to the success of the show? “I think so many characters to latch onto, Julian keeps them all spinning over -— I think is a unique element to it.” This quintessentially English period drama has not only attracted a large audience, but also Oscar-winning actor Shirley MacLaine who plays Edith’s American grandmother whom Carmichael added is “everything you could hope for working with a Hollywood legend”. The Christmas episode also sees the debut of Oscar-nominee Paul Giamatti, who plays Edith’s roguish Uncle Harold and whom Carmichael is also working with on a film adaptation of Madame Bovary, “he really is a talent so it was great to have him on board”. However, following the abrupt departure of Jessica Brown Findlay in the third season and Dan Stevens in last year’s Christmas episode, did Carmichael ever worry that such developments would result in weaker storylines or outrage amongst fans? “We were really conscious that it was going to be devastating, and of course you worry about what’s going to happen next, will people take to it”. Carmichael, believes that these departures and subsequent plot lines have demonstrated the remarkable quality of writing within the show and it “did really give the show legs”, as well as new possible plot developments such as Lady Mary’s next plan of action in the wake of Matthew’s death. Will there by a further shock in store for fans in this year’s Christmas episode? Carmichael reassured, “I don’t think people will be as shocked as they were last year.”
The costume element of the show has garnered both attention and awards, with costume designer Caroline McCall receiving a Primetime Emmy award this year for her work on this aspect of the show. Although the costume detail is integral and no doubt, a reason for its success, Carmichael stated that the character of the show is not sacrificed for mere aesthetics and that it’s been a “real conversation”, particularly with Lady Edith’s situation in the fourth series. Carmichael praised McCall for utilizing the costumes, such as dainty, pink dresses to convey the vulnerability of Edith in the midst of her pregnancy and her dilemma regarding Gregson; and she admitted that “it’s no surprise to me at all that the costumes are a popular element to the show”.
With the fifth season already confirmed for production, fans will wait with anticipation for the Christmas episode for answers to the questions that the fourth season has yet to settle. Carmichael stated that Lady Edith “has been through a gambit of emotions”, and so too have fans, and it is testimony to the show and its writers, that the series can create such powerful emotions both on and off-screen.
The Downton Abbey Christmas Special can be seen on Christmas Day on UTV at 9pm.
