To the Manor Born

This likable series followed hot on the heels of Penelope Keith's success in 'The Good Life'. In 'The Good Life', Penelope played the thoroughly snobbish Margot Ledbetter and it is possible to see that 'To the Manor Born' was a somewhat carry on from that. In this series, made for the BBC from 1979 to 1981, Penelope plays Audrey Fforbes-Hamilton, a member of aristocracy, (and boy, doesn't she know it) and one of the 'old girls' with the very proper up-bringing. When her husband dies, Audrey discovers she is in serious debt and must sell the house, Grantley Manor. The Estate is bought by Mr Richard DeVere, a Czechoslovak immigrant who has established a very successful chain of supermarkets called 'Cavendish Foods'. Audrey moves into the Gate-Keepers lodge and continues to live the aristocratic life. The show is a gentle dig at English aristocratic life and those who are members of it and those who are trying to. The show is also dominated by the 'will-they-or-won't-they' relationship between Audrey and Richard (played by Peter Bowles). One of the many likeable British comedy series.

I remembered watching a few episodes of this show in the 1980s on PBS Channel 13. It was the first time I was exposed to a British comedy and I thought it was rather quaint and sweet. I always regretted that I never watched the whole series. Well, to my joy, I found this show at my local library! My husband and I watched the whole show and we were both extremely amused by Audrey fforbes-Hamilton and Richard DeVere. The comedy is very sophisticated. This kind of show appeals to intelligent people. There is nothing risque or low brow about this show. The actors all had wonderful comic timing and the episodes and dialogue extremely well-written. There was a nice sexual tension between the main characters but nothing overt or vulgar. This show leads up to a delicious ending that had me cheering and wishing the show will continue! I am very satisfied how this show ended. It was just too wonderful!

One thing I want to add, Peter Bowles, as well as a very funny actor in an understated way, is extremely good looking and debonair on this show. I still remembered the fashions from the 1970s and I thought they were awful, too many polyester suits! Well, on this show, the clothing represents the best of 1970s fashion. Peter Bowles cuts quite a wonderful, handsome figure in his 1970s suits and I was surprised at how well velvet looks on him!

Between 1979 and 1981, 21 episodes of this unforgettable British series were produced. For whatever quality one chooses to stress, no half-hour satirical comedy ever made has ever, by my lights, come near equaling it. The writers cleverly located the principals on a spacious and fine 400 year-old English estate belonging to the very noblesse oblige upper-class Audrey fforbes-Hamilton. Her husband has just expired; it having been a marriage of convenience, she is pleased to be free; pleased, that is, until she is unable to collect quite enough money to outbid a new owner who comes into possession of her property. He is Richard de Vere, a transplanted Czech with a delightful and exasperating mother, and the position as chief executive of the conglomerate Cavendish Foods. Not to be turned off her ancestral property by a "grocer", Audrey purchases the Manor's lodge; and from this vantage point, she begins advising de Vere on what he must, must not, should have done, should not, and needs to consider doing and not doing. The merry war between the two is a classic one; and the gradual realization by both that they are two halves of a coin of great potential happiness takes an entire season to be grasped. Every episode advances one or the other's training, or both--his in what it take to deserve and preserve such a great manor, she in why she needs him so that together they can do what she cannot possibly do alone. As Audrey, Penelope Keith proves herself the best British comedic actress of the century, once again. Playing off her dynamic, lovely, funny and extraordinarily intelligent performance is no easy task; fortunately, the producer, Gareth Gwenan, assigned the role to very talented Peter Bowles, who comes close to holding his own against her formidable character. The small lodge, set against the great manor, and the manor against an increasingly vulgarized and irresponsible English citizenry with a history of far more taste are both used to set off Audrey's attempts, enforced or not, to learn how to cope with ordinary details formerly handled by servants and Richard's attempts to learn to be thoroughly Enlgish while striving for a modernity he only half understands at best. Also featured in the able cast are Angela Thorne as Audrey's friend and rival Marjorie, Daphne Heard as Mrs. Poulouvika the Mother, Gerald Sim as the bemused Rector, Michael Bilton as the lazy but lovable servant Old Ned, John Rudling as Brabinger the splendid butler who goes with her to serve Audrey, and Anthony Sharp as the womanizing old Brigadier. Many others in the town are also featured now and again, along with guest stars such as Bill Travers and Rula Lenska, and assorted class types from the corporation, the British old boy network, and the government. This is biting satire about two persons who are self-assertive, ethical and capable of being insulted, touched, advised, mistaken, friendly, impatient, angry and loving. Peter Spence and Christopher Bond are assigned credit for having produced such memorable plot ideas as a trip to Spain that is never taken, beekeeping on a budget, why hedgerows are necessary, the danger of old school friends who have lost weight, how to save a doomed railway station, shopping as a learned skill, how not to attend a formal dance, milking a back injury for fun and profit, and exampling the nastiness of snobbish upper class types who are as stuck in Feudal attitudes as are the series' government types corporate flunkies and resentful neighbors. The allegory and leads here are so perfect, by my standards, I never expect to see anything of this satirical quality ever done again in my lifetime. Rent the series, view it in order. I suggest there is not a less-than-memorable episode in the entire period from the leads' first meeting to their unorthodox decision to form a partnership called "marriage". I suggest that anyone who cannot appreciate the superiority of this series probably deserves not to do so. It is not another god British comedic series--it is THE British comedic series of all time.

As a Yank who once lived in the U.K. and married a Brit, I really enjoy watching the British comedies. I find TTMB quaint, aged, and overtly "English". This is a series that actually pokes fun at the aristocratic, hyphenated namesakes who at times come across as snobbish. To me, it is the quintessential English comedy with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect, without taking itself too seriously. A mainstay for the rerun (repeats) circuit. It reminds me of the way in which Brits viewed the American series "Dallas" as a stereotypical view of life from across the pond. A much-beloved classic TV series for audiences on both sides of the Atlantic.

Fresh from her success in the BBC sitcom "The Good Life", Penelope Keith ("Audrey") is the lady of "Grantleigh" - a Gloucestershire stately pile she shares with husband "Martin". The first of the 22 episodes informs us that he has died, and that her world is about to be turned upside down. He squandered all the "fforbes-Hamilton" family money and she is going to have to sell up! The auction ensues and this estate, which they have managed for 400-odd years, ends up in the hands of a self-made millionaire Czech immigrant "Richard de Vere" who made his money in supermarkets. Imagine - it's almost sacrilegious to her! Anyway, the remainder of the series' depict their constant sparring; she the superior, broke, aristocrat; he the nouveau riche upstart. Essentially a two hander, there are a couple of fun foils: "Marjorie" (Angela Thorne) her down-trodden best friend; her stoic butler "Brabinger" (John Rudling) and his mother, the wonderful Daphne Heard ("Mrs. Polouvicka") who has an old Czechoslovakian saying for every situation, and they all keep the well written comedy flowing well. It's a very British thing, this - I doubt if the humour will travel particularly well, but at the time up to 24 million of us watched their drama unfold. The combination of snobbery, pomposity and witty repartee from the pen of Peter Spence really clicks. The characters, gently stereoptyped as they are, work really well with a sophistication that endures still.