Downton Abbey Creator Julian Fellowes on His 'Darker' New Limited Series Belgravia
Downton Abbey fans are in luck: A new drama from series creator Julian Fellowes premiered this month.
Belgravia, which debuted April 12 on EPIX, explores the secrets and scandals amongst the upper echelon of London society in the 19th century. The limited series begins at the Duchess of Richmond’s (Diana Kent) ball on the fateful eve of the Battle of Waterloo. When James (Philip Glenister) and Anne Trenchard (Tamsin Greig) accept an invitation to the evening, it sets in motion a series of events that will have consequences for decades to come as a long-buried secret unravels.
Speaking to Town & Country, Fellowes compared the new show to the acclaimed Downton Abbey.
“I think it’s darker than Downton,” he said. “The servants are working people; they’re doing their jobs because those are the jobs that were available. It’s not sentimental. In the country, people tended to work for families for many years and live in cottages on their estate, but that wasn’t true in London. The average time in 1880 for a footman to remain in a London house was 18 months. It’s a sharper world.”
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And while Downton Abbey concluded in 2015 after six seasons and spawned a movie, Belgravia is a six-episode story, which Fellowes explained is due to its “linear, singular narrative.”
“Sometimes you’re dealing with a linear, single narrative, and that doesn’t really have the potential for the soap-like quality of an ongoing series, when you have all the time to take an interest in a new set of characters,” he said. “You go rolling on with it indefinitely until the audience has had enough. With a single story, there’s no need for a sequel. You’re not thinking in terms of a second chapter, because the thing is finished and done.”
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The show also marked Fellowes’ first time adapting his own work: He first wrote Belgravia as a novel that was published in 2016.
“I’ve adapted books before for television, film, and theater, but never my own work,” he said. “I did find it quite interesting that you have to forget you wrote it — when a bit seems boring or too long and in need of cuts, you need to forget you were the original author and come at it with a new sword.”
The ensemble cast also includes Harriet Walter (The Crown), Alice Eve (She’s Out Of My League), Tara Fitzgerald (Game of Thrones), Ella Purnell (Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children), Richard Goulding (The Windsors), James Fleet (Four Weddings and a Funeral), Adam James (Band of Brothers), Paul Ritter (Friday Night Dinner) and Saskia Reeves (Luther).
Belgravia airs Sundays (8 p.m. ET) on EPIX.
