Manor House
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Movie Reviews of Manor House
Movie Review: Excellent Production
Summary: 5 Stars
I enjoyed this series when it first aired in the USA and have thought about it often, so purchased the DVD set. It is as good as I remember, and one advantage of watching on DVD is I can forward through the whining bits - which were annoying in 2001 and equally so today. As many other reviewers have noted, the lower servants spend quite a lot of time complaining about how hard they have to work, and you have to wonder (as Mr. Edgar, the perfect butler, muses at one point) what they thought they were getting into when they volunteered for these positions. As a historical experiment, it's far from accurate. A house of that size would (and did) have far more servants than used in the show - this is basically a skeleton crew. If the family with so few servants wanted to entertain on a lavish scale as they do here, even in Edwardian times, the staff would have not put up with it and forced them to hire additional help for balls and such. A butler would not be required to valet for his master - he would have been busy running the house. The lady of the house would have had a lot more duties than changing her clothes four or five times a day, as is implied in the show (As they do mention briefly, she would have planned the menus, and met with the housekeeper daily, she'd have spent several hours on correspondence and paying calls). Though the narrations says that this lifestyle was about to collapse with the onset of WWI, that isn't exactly true - many hung on until after the second world war, and the high taxes and death duties. I also thought they would have mentioned that a lot of big country place like Manderston served as holpitals during the war, run by ladies of the manor - the real life Lady Oliff-Coopers. The sister-in-law, unhappy with her status in the house, would have been allowed to see her beau, and invite him to house parties and such. But, having since read interviews with the producer of the program, Caroline Ross Pirie, I think she purposely set it up the way it is to make the upstairs folks look as bad as possible and to get the worst reactions from the downstairs volunteers. She made it very plain afterwards that she despises the Edwardian era and has nothing but contempt for it (see her interview with the Washington Post online for example). To be more realistic, maybe they should have chosen people who were in the service industry, and perhaps paid them, so that they were truly working for the family. Staff of the period would come to the job familiar with how to do the work unfamiliar to most modern people, and/or would have had the opportunity to train on the job under an experienced person. So, I bore this in mind on this viewing, and am still very glad to have the DVD set. No extras included, unfortunately - it would have been nice to see additional footage, for example. I also purchased the companion book for the series. Anyone interested in visiting Manderston, you can stay there or just visit for the day: [...]Movie Review: More than just a good show... a lesson for all leaders.
Summary: 5 Stars
This is definitely a great collection from purely a reality show entertainment point of view. However, what struck me even more than just my amusement was the lessons this show articulated about leadership and management. I've done quite a bit of reading about leadership, everything from "Think and Grow Rich" to "Primal Leadership", and one the overriding themes is always communication in all its various forms and in all the directions it flows. This series does a suburb job of illustrating exactly what can do wrong and how if different levels of an organization, or in this case, a manor, do not know, do not understand, or do not choose to care to understand what's going on in the hearts and minds of the people around them.Sir John publicly insults the butler, and you get to see first hand how much more devastating that is than respectfully pulling someone to the side. The lady of the house's biggest complaint at the beginning of the show was about how she never saw her children. By the end she didn't seem to care, which shows us how quickly our minds can change if we don't maintain focus. Sir John kills a couple of birds for the lowest servants to cook for themselves as a treat. However, there's a big party coming up, and there's no way the servants are going to have time to fry the birds, so the apparent act of kindness is received by those whom it was directed at in completely the wrong way, which shows how important it is that we understand what the people around us need.
The best example for poor leadership in the house, however, probably occurs at the end. Sir John and the family are so distraught about leaving the house. They breakdown in front of the servants while saying good-bye, and they feel awful about leaving everyone whom they've come to feel so close to. At the same time, the servants are rather glad to be leaving aside from missing other people in their group, and most of them have developed a strong dislike for the family, of which the family is completely oblivious. The implication? Well, first, this shows how easily the same situation can look to two different groups of people on different sides of a situation. Secondly, if that was an organization, it would be on the brink of having its workforce walk out on it, even though, to the eyes of management, everything was splendid and, as they understood it, everyone was very connected to everyone else at all levels.
I've done my best to describe what I saw in this review, but I'm sure I've done it poorly as I am not well trained at critiquing this sort of thing. Also, there is plenty more going on that I didn't even come close to touching on. Please believe me on this point, though: if you are even at least a little bit interested in buying this title, do it! You will be so happy, and perhaps enlightened, that you did!
Movie Review: One of the best of the House series...
Summary: 5 Stars
Out of all the House DVDs I have so far the best two are Frontier House and Manor House, both produced at the same time, both reacting to 9/11 in their own way, both dealing with the social pressures, gender issues and historical problems of their time period.
Manor House has a family and 12 servants placed in a Manor for 3 months. The time period is the turn of the last Century. The servants are divided into two groups, the upper servants who interact with the family, and the lower servants who are not seen. In fact, if they run into a family member during their duties they sometimes stand in the corner and pretend not to be there. The Butler is Mr. Edgar who seems to be the most interesting person on the whole show.
His grandfather was also a Butler and Mr. Edgar seems to have absorbed much of the ideals, or at least character, of his grandfather. Silent, strong, never seeming to step out of character, he is a refreshing change to many of the whining 21st Century people who are always stepping out of their position in the shows to prove how much of a HERO they are. BLAH!
I can't decide if the Tutor had real problems or was just paranoid because I barely get to see him. He appears on and off. I don't remember seeing him in half the episodes.
I kind of liked the Chef. He was hyper and anger half the time but he seemed to know his stuff and sometimes had interesting insight.
Most of the people in the Manor House stay in character as best they can. Or they leave. A few, like Mr. Edgar, were truly focused on doing their best and learning. The family, the Olliff-Cooper family, seem to step into the roles without a problem. Funny enough, while they do show some insight during their time there I think only the two sons really come away with any real insight. I think Jonathan got the most out of it.
There is romance, parties, a lovely house, humor, sadness, and even a ghost - but that could be somebody just freaking out in a new house. Yes, there is a romance between two of the servants but you wonder how much of the bond was real love or the pressure of working in such a setting - fighting the system, the hard work, the need for somebody to turn to with their troubles. Once they left the Manor, into the real world, would the relationship hold? Unlike the PBS versions of the House series the Manor House had no follow-up two to three months later.
There are extras in the form of more Edwardian House Diaries. I suggest waiting till watching all the episodes before watching them. They are somewhat revealing.
Full five stars out of five. If you have never seen the House series before this would be a great DVD set to start with.
Movie Review: F O N D.....M E M O R I E 5 Stars
MANOR HOUSE is a "slice-of-life, deliberately-devised 'reality'" program, one of several that ran on PBS. Others in the series are "Frontier House" and "Colonial House", etc. What happens is, a group of modern-day people, (NOT actors), dress up in the clothes, and live, (as nearly as possible), the lives of people during a past era."Manor House" stands out in my mind for ssevral reasons. As the "action" of the story here is in the 1900s, it is the nearest in time to our own, (unlike "Colonial House", or "Frontier House". Also, I remember that the woman playing the "Lady of the Manor" is, in real life, a Medical Docror, (MD). She enjoyed playing the role of "Lady of the Manor" SO much, that at the end, she says it would be nice to continue as such. Also, amongst the other "actors" in this series, a REAL-LIFE romance bloossomed, and, at the end of the series, these two people, (I shant tell you which ones!), decided to get married in their actual, late 20th century - early 21st century, lives.
This series is flawlessly done, and really does take the viewer into this era.
And, unlike compainion PBS series, like "Frontier House" and "Colonial House",
the life-style in the Grand Homes of England, (and elsewhere where dwell the rich and famous), often do, (on perhaps a much-modified scale), still exist, (in REAL reality), today.
Another PBS program proved this fact, beyond all doubt. Ir was called 'COUNTRY HOUSE', or "A COUNTRY HOUSE", and showed the workings of a modern English estate.
It was a fascinating REAL slice of aristocratic life, as lived in the late 20th-early 21st century. The part I remember most was when one of the tenant's children became ill, and needed to go to hospital -- and have an operation, if I remember correecty. The owner of the estate paid for all expenses for this hospital stay and operation.
I do hope that ("A COUNTRY HOUSE', or just "COUNTRY HOUSE"), is available on DVD -- or even VHS. For THIS is "reality-reality", and truly shows what is being done in MODERN manor houses -- today. In the meantime, this "made into reality" series,
"Manor House", comes the closest of any DVD that I have come across that is available, at present.
Movie Review: Recreating Edwardian Country Life For A Variety Of Classes
Summary: 5 Stars
Along with such other projects as The 1900 House and Regency House Party, this experiment in living history and psychology also tests the extent to which the viewing public is capable of broadening its definition of what qualifies as entertainment here in the tens, the decade in which reality television is dominant.
In Manor House a number of men and women from all walks of life in our own time were set into an environment that recreated the Edwardian period of a century ago. What resulted was a three-month voyage away from the familiar into a life that was gritty for some, the height of luxury for others. Here scullery maids work pre-dawn to post-dusk scrubbing their hands raw, while footmen, cooks, maids, grooms and groundsmen toil with varying degrees of demanding labor. But at the heart of this hive of activity live the pampered gentry who (in the fiction created for the small screen) own the house and grounds, and from whom simultaneously much and very little is expected. Throughout the run-time of this series, various guests pay calls in order to push the storyline forward, including a real-life Indian prince.
I thought this was a great series start to finish, and would even say at times it was engrossing with its cast drawn from the spectrum of modern British society. So real was this outing into the past made to seem that at one point Mrs. Oliff-Cooper, in actuality, of course, a twenty-first-century denizen, remarked that she had to keep reminding herself that her son was not one day going to inherit the house, grounds, servants, and all there. Yes, so real did it seem that I also found myself thinking of how sad that these likable people would shortly be confronted with the tragedy of the First World War.
I'm always glad when new titles such as these are made, and think if anything, Manor House on DVD was under-priced.