O’Brien to Leave ‘Downton Abbey’

Siobhan Finneran as the scheming Miss O’Brien.

“Downton Abbey‘s mass exodus continues: It looks like O’Brien is leaving the show, too. Actress Siobhan Finneran says that she’s ‘not doing any more,’ according to the Press Association, though it’s not clear yet how exactly her villainous character will be written off.” -- From New York Magazine, today.

SEASON FOUR, EPISODE 1, SCENE 1
(With apologies to John Kenney and The New Yorker.)

The port of Bombay. SHRIMPY and LADY SUSAN are disembarking from a steamship. O’BRIEN follows at a discreet distance, carrying Susan’s reticule and glaring. She has not had a cigarette in three weeks.

SHRIMPY: Well, here we are in sunny India, ready to begin my important work as Sub-Sub-Vice-Wallah, or whatever it is they call me.

SUSAN: I’m not looking forward to this, truly. This beastly weather. These awful people.

Lady Susan (Phoebe Nicholls)
with the Dowager Countess (Georgina Spelvin).

[Suddenly, a rogue elephant charges the pier, catching O’BRIEN between its tusks and goring her before trampling her to death and charging off in the other direction.]

SUSAN: Oh, dear. And now an elephant has just trampled my lady’s maid. That was unexpected.

SHRIMPY: Yes, particularly since African elephants are most uncommon in this part of India.

SUSAN: And now who is going to do my hair? Oh, this is vexing. I hate your posting, Shrimpy, I hate India, and most of all, I hate you — so terribly, terribly much.

[Music up as SHRIMPY and SUSAN exchange tense, hostile looks. Fade out.]

Special Guest Star.

LATER IN THE SAME EPISODE

Exterior, Bombay Zoo. WILKINS, the lady’s maid dumped by Lady Susan when she hired O’Brien, steps out of the Elephant Keeper’s Hut, followed by the ELEPHANT KEEPER. Both are in some disarray and it is apparent that they have been frolicking, as Mrs. Patmore would say, though neither would seem to have enjoyed it much.

ELEPHANT KEEPER: I don’t know why I agreed to this plan of yours! Letting a mad elephant loose on the streets of Bombay! Supposing somebody gets hurt!

WILKINS: You’re the one who’ll get hurt, if you don’t keep your mouth shut.

ELEPHANT KEEPER: Do you think I’m going to tell anyone about this? I could lose my job!

[But WILKINS is no longer listening. Close-up as she glares into the middle distance.]

WILKINS (to herself): I told you you hadn’t heard the last of me, Sarah O’Brien! Nobody outsmarts Emmeline Wilkins! Nobody!

[Music up as a meteorite lands on WILKINS, killing her instantly.]

In happier times. Well, sort of.

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Interview: Sarah Rice on Her Glamorous Nights

As Johanna, the Demon Barber’s daughter, soprano Sarah Rice starred in the first show I saw on Broadway. She managed to project sweetness and lovely charm even when Johanna started to fly off her hinges, while singing Sondheim’s stratospheric vocal lines and teaching us all the meaning of the word “reticule.” It was a performance for the ages — and now, some three decades after Sweeney Todd, Sarah Rice is singing even better.

Catching her special holiday act for All Hallow’s Eve, last autumn at the New York nightclub Birdland, I heard richness, freshness, and brilliant authority in every note she sang. To the intimacy of the cabaret setting she frequents nowadays, she brings an eclectic taste in music, a prodigious amount of research, and a winning sense of humor. With her cascade of russet curls, she looks like a Victorian Valentine’s card — as painted by Titian. And then she brings out her theremin. She is nothing if not original.

Sarah Rice is bringing a new act to 54 Below this Sunday, a one-time-only sampling of “Glamorous Nights & Careless Rapture: The Music of the Era of Downton Abbey, Gosford Park & More,” featuring songs by Ivor Novello, Noël Coward, among others. I’m looking forward to seeing the show — and to seeing you there — but particularly since music at Downton thus far has consisted primarily of a single song from Shirley MacLaine, I asked Sarah to tell us a little more about what to expect.

As Johanna in Sweeney Todd:
Clearly, the Green Finch and Linnet Bird
taught her how to sing very well indeed.

Q: What about this era in music appeals to you? What draws you to Ivor Novello?

SARAH RICE: It’s some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard in my life. It has a lot of Puccini, those augmented chords that are so appealing, and the Ravel kind of scales and stuff, there’s a lot of that. Novello’s style is called “Ruritanian,” and it’s like it was of another era even when it was new. It’s incredibly beautiful, incredibly romantic, lush — and I’m lovin’ it!

It was really hard to get the music, because it’s just not published any more. Thank God, Steve Ross had a friend in England who collects this stuff, Noël Coward and Ivor Novello music, he’s got the original scores. A lot of this was sent from England just a couple of days ago, actually. Those beautiful orchestrations — I wish I had a full orchestra. I just have harp and violin, to kind of give a taste of it. But it’s just beautiful. I listen to it and it just transports me. I hope to do it justice.

Q: What other music will be on the program?

SARAH RICE: Noël Coward. I’ve got some Flanders & Swann. It’s sort of loosely of the era, because the actual era of Downton Abbey is very narrow, and Gosford Park is in the ’30s, so we’ve said, “And More,” to stretch it. It’s basically between the two World Wars. An era of elegance. There’s some British music hall, and there’s actually a Cole Porter song that was done by Bea Lillie. I’ve got a Tessie O’Shea song, “Nobody Loves a Fairy When She’s Forty.” I have a whole fairy section.

Ivor Novello led quite a colorful life. It’s interesting how Coward and Novello’s lives — they were always circling around each other professionally and socially. Noël was a little younger, but I’m trying to add into the show what their relationship was and all that kind of stuff. I have some good juicy tidbits. It was just a fun time.

What we’re trying to create is the feeling that you’re in one of those salons. And of course 54 Below is the perfect place for it.

Songwriter and matinée idol Ivor Novello.

Q: Your voice is in spectacular shape. What’s your secret?

SR: To quote Natalie Dessay, I work like a dog! I study twice a week with my teacher, and just try to remain as active as possible. We work very hard on trying to get bad habits away. And she teaches Barbara Cook, so this technique is very good longevity. As Claudia Cummings once said, if you’re in reasonably good health and you keep singing, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to keep it into your old age. It’s just that most people don’t want to work that hard.

But I think Jan Peerce sang every day, or at least vocalized. Robert Merrill, too. You just keep doing it, and take good care of your health. The studying, I think finding a teacher who works for you is very important.

Q: But Jan Peerce and Robert Merrill weren’t sopranos!

SR: Again, I think that with the airplane and everything like that, and the way people are scheduled today, it’s impossible to stay healthy. You’re in Frankfurt one night and you’re in Stockholm the next, going back and forth. People used to take the summer off, and you’d travel by ship, so it took you a week to get anywhere. I just think that today’s pace is very hard on people. But Anja Silja, here she is in her sixties, and she sounds fabulous! I heard that Rosalind Elias also sounded great in Follies. There’s no reason, again, as long as you don’t have incredible health problems — the opera companies may not want you — but there’s no reason you can’t sound good. And I love the fact that in cabaret, 80 is the new 40. It’s true!

Léon Theremin plays his invention.
Hollywood horror movies and old-time radio shows made abundant use of the theremin’s “otherworldly sounds.”

Q: You’ve recently started to play the theremin in your act. How did you pick it up?

SR: I was doing a concert at Tom O’Horgan’s house. I had taken a break, and when I got back to singing again, I was doing a concert called “The Other Side of Broadway,” Broadway composers doing classical music. Tom O’Horgan was directing, and we were rehearsing at his house. He had one of the original RCA theremins, from 1929 or something. I first heard it, and it was the most otherworldly sound I ever heard. The old RCAs sound like a cross between a woman and a cello. It’s the most unearthly sound you ever heard. I was just hooked by it.

But they’re not easy to come by, and it wasn’t until about eight months ago that I thought, I’d really like to do this. And so I borrowed a theremin from a friend while I was waiting for mine to come, and learned to play it. And now I have my own. It’s not an RCA, those are expensive, like $15 thousand. I hope to get one someday, but the modern ones are fine. I love it.

Precision theremin playing is a whole other thing. I don’t do spooky woo-woos. I play it as an instrument. It just had this otherworldly sound to it that’s fascinating to me. I use it like a singer. Whatever instrument you have played, you will play the theremin like that. Clara Rockmore, the goddess of the theremin and the muse of the man who invented it, was a violin prodigy, and she had to give it up because she had rickets in her bowing arm. The theremin for her was a lifesaver, because it allowed her to play her repertoire on the theremin. She played like a string player, her intonation and everything. It’s just beautiful. But I play it like a singer, because that’s what I bring to it.

It’s a fascinating instrument, and the people who play it are interesting. They tend to be outside the box. It draws a lot of different kinds of people, and a lot of really wonderful musicians. It’s a lot of fun.

In Victor Herbert’s Naughty Marietta:
Finding the sweet mystery of life.

Q: I heard you play it in your Halloween show. It lends a lot to the act.

SR: I’m a lot better now! A lot better with the pitch. The thing is that you’re just playing the air, electrical waves. There’s no frets, there’s nothing. You’re totally playing by ear. It just takes time.

When I was first learning it, the pitch would go a little wonky sometimes. It still does. A friend likes to say that it’s like being an ice skater: if your mind wanders for a split second, you can wind up on your ass on the ice. It requires perfect control, and then you’ve got electrical current that changes, which changes the pitch field on you. So suddenly it’s in a different place.

Q: You’ve played Victorian heroines and now you’re immersed in the Downton and Gosford world. How do you think Lady Crawley would react to the theremin?

SR: She’d probably be wigged. The truth is that the theremin was invented during that era and was commercially produced during that time. Technically it could have been around then, and the truth is that English aristocrats have their bizarre side. It probably would have been something that would have been fairly popular, if it weren’t so hard to play. It was supposed to be in everybody’s living room. It would enable anyone young or old to play. The truth is that it’s the world’s easiest instrument to learn how to play — badly. Because all you have to do is wave your hand in the air and you make pitch changes.

With a close friend.

Q: What else can we look forward to in your show?

SR: There’s going to be a lot of comedy. It’s not just beautiful music. A complete concert of Ivor Novello music would be like eating a dinner of Christmas roses. I have put the British music hall in there, there’s some funny Ivor Novello, some fun Coward. I’m hoping that it’s going to be heartbreaking and touching and funny. It’s not just going to be listen to the soprano yodel pretty tunes. And I have a lot of good gossip!

It isn’t going to be stuffy at all. It isn’t all just soprano high notes. There’s gonna be a little chili sauce in there, too. A little chili sauce on the Christmas roses, which I guess is a confection.

But tiaras are welcome — even for the women — and you don’t have to worry about getting home in time for Downton Abbey. And if you’re bereft from the end of the season, come, and this will restore your heart.

Sarah Rice: Glamorous Nights & Careless Rapture
Music of the Era of Downton Abbey, Gosford Park & More
Sunday, March 3, 7PM
54 Below
254 West 54 Street, New York
With Sarah Rice, Vocals & Theremin
Seth Weinstein, Piano
Maria Banks, Harp
Jonathan Russell, Violin
For more information and to place your reservation, click here.

The Divine Sarah

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Dear Downton Abby

The recent death of Pauline Phillips, better known as “Dear Abby,” has reminded us all of the value of good advice when it comes to proper behavior and personal problems.

Of course, there’s one place where everyone behaves properly — and everyone has terrible personal problems. Perhaps they need an advice columnist.

Wake up and smell the Montrachet, kids!

Dear Downton Abby,

Today, my supervisor upbraided me sharply because I did not know the difference between a soup spoon and a bouillon spoon. I am quite out of sorts. What should I do?

Signed,
Clueless with Cutlery

Dear Clueless,

Tell him to go use the spoon for an aspic.

Dear Downton Abby:

I am the victim of a most unfortunate circumstance. After making the intimate acquaintance of a foreign gentleman to whom I was not wedded — he expired most suddenly, requiring a good deal of subterfuge on the part of myself, my mother, and one of the parlormaids. Do you see any potential harm in concealing the truth of this incident from my fiancé? I would drop the match altogether, but Granny says it’s a good one, and really, my prospects are otherwise dim. Moreover, my fiancé is the only person I have ever known who can inspire me to any sort of facial expression. Please help!

Signed,
Somewhat Sullied Virtue

Dear Sullied,

The longer you string your fiancé along, the greater the risk that he’ll take up with some wishy-washy blonde heiress. Tell him the truth or don’t — but grab him while you can!

Dear Downton Abby,

The new footman is rather dishy. How can I get him to notice me? I’ve tried “accidentally” dropping by whenever he changes his shirt. Perhaps some sort of trickery would help my cause. Stealing his trousers and then pretending to find them and return them to him might do the job.

Signed,
Surpassing the Love of Women
(P.S. I am not female.)

Dear Surpassing,

Fresher breath will make a difference! Try Entailmints, the new candy from Altoids!

Dear Downton Abby,

I seem to be the only person in the English-speaking world who truly cares that me husband is in prison for a crime I refuse to believe he may actually have committed. What should I do?

Signed,
Keeper of the Flame

Dear Keeper,

Whatever you do, don’t just sit around reading his letters!

Rich people’s problems

Dear Downton Abby:

I recently received a substantial bequest from the estate of the late husband of my late fiancée. Of course I cannot accept the money. How best may I tell my wife of my decision?

Signed,
Unbending Rectitude

Dear Rect,

Your question bores me. Shut up and take the money.

Dear Downton Abby,

Everyone treats me like a child! Perhaps ’tis because of me freakish inability to age — but that’s true of most folks in these parts, due to the mysterious properties of the local water, which is why we’d all like to stay on here. So I think ’tis more likely because of me lowly position in the household, but I digress. I look like I’m about 14, but I’m in me mid-to-late-20s now and I’ve been married and widowed already. Nobody understands that I have me needs, like any healthy girl. The footmen won’t even notice me! (Except for me husband, and he’s dead, like I told ye.) I’m at me wits’ end, I don’t mind telling ye.

Signed,
Heat’s in the Kitchen

Dear Heat,

Have you considered another position?

I say, what’s that crashing sound?

Dear Downton Abby,

My husband invested and lost our entire fortune in a foolish business venture; lately I have learned that he has been mismanaging our estate, as well. A recent visit from my mother reminded me that I am in fact Jewish. What are the rules for divorce among Jewish people?

Signed,
Co-raspondent

Dear Raspondent,

You can get one, maybe. I should be a rabbi, in your opinion?

Dear Downton Abby,

What is a “weak end”?

Signed,
Countless Confusions

Dear Countless,

It’s what you get from too much horseback riding.

Readers, are you a middle child? Are you sibling to a middle child? We all know the resentment and loneliness — to say nothing of financial hardships — that can result. Write today to ask for a copy of my free pamphlet, Combatting Jan Brady Syndrome.

Lady Jan?
(Without the goo-goo-googly eyes.)

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Julian Fellowes to Create Several More Original Series

Because of course American versions of British series
always turn out so well.
(Actually, I quite liked Beacon Hill, especially Kathryn Walker’s performance as bohemian Fawn Lassiter.)

Following the announcement that Julian Fellowes is creating a new period drama for NBC, set in 19th-century New York, several critics have described the new series as nothing more than an Americanized rehash of Fellowes’ own Downton Abbey, which itself is sometimes described as a rusticated rehash of Upstairs, Downstairs. Stung by this unexpected backlash, screenwriter Fellowes today announced the creation of several new series “entirely unlike anything ever seen on television, and particularly unlike anything ever seen on Masterpiece Theatre at any point in the 1970s,” Fellowes told television reporters.

Several networks, including the BBC, NBC, and BET, are now said to be mulling over options. The series include:

Pwylldark: A dashing Revolutionary War veteran returns to his native Wales — “not Cornwall by any means, that’s right out, it’s Wales, W-A-L-E-S” — where he discovers that his fiancée has married his rival. In later episodes, Rhys Pwylldark clashes with the wealthy Leghorner family and marries his own servant, the spirited but unintelligible Welsh girl, Dementia.

Murder Must Amortise: A dashing, witty, completely original detective, Lord Peter Walmsley, goes undercover in a mortgage office to solve a baffling murder. Starring Marcus Brigstocke, whose portrayal of Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster has been much admired, “unless of course Dan Stevens suddenly becomes available,” and featuring “lots of that nattering about in drawing rooms and evening wear that I do rather awfully well.”

The Eight Wives of Henry VI: Sex, violence, and insanity at the dawn of the War of the Roses! While the historical Henry VI had only one wife, Margaret of Anjou, Fellowes insists that the series is “emotionally true, because poor Henry was mentally ill and couldn’t count. Besides, Margaret was woman enough for eight. Grrraowr.”

Henry the Somethingth.

I, Vitellius: Sex, violence, and intrigue in the court of imperial Rome! Vitellius, third of the “Four Emperors” who ruled in 69 A.D., narrates this gripping saga. A few scenes may not be unsuitable for young children. “I envision the opening credits with some sort of slithery creature, possibly a salamander or newt, or even a BBC executive, sliding menacingly across the screen,” Fellowes said.

I, Vitellius: Fiends and Romans.

Hortense: Celebrated by poets and painters, the beautiful French-born soprano Hortense Schneider soon catches the eye of the Prince of Wales. Fellowes describes Hortense as “by far the most scandalous of all the many mistresses of Edward VII, because she hasn’t been serialised yet.” He admits to wishing her name were “more euphonious,” and holds out the prospect of changing it to something like “Lilian Longtree, perhaps.”

“As a writer, I’ve always longed to make a Hortense,”
Fellowes told reporters.

Other potential series include The Forsythia Saga, The Point of Spoylton, and The Duchess of Cavendish Street, about a feisty kitchen maid who works her way to opening a chic London hotel in the first quarter of the 20th century.

Most promising of all, however, is Pride and Premises, in which a dashing writer, Fitzgibbon Dancy, clashes with headstrong Elizabeth Bonnett. Elizabeth at first believes that Mr. Dancy’s latest television scripts borrow too heavily from other people’s work, while Mr. Dancy for his part insists that he is the most original writer ever to work in television. Since the series is set in the 18th century, Elizabeth cannot disprove his claim.

Pride and Premises.

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Producers, Fans Respond to Maggie Smith ‘Downton’ Rumours

Elspeth Venable was one of the lucky ones. Although she attempted to set fire to herself — dousing her ruffled taffeta gown with a mixture of kerosene and sal volatile, then walking headlong into a lit candelabra — she survived.

Not so lucky was Winston Derwent, who gorged himself on cucumber sandwiches, crumpets, and rat poison; or Hyacinth Moncrieff, who screamed, “There’s nothing left to live for!” before leaping to her death from the rectory roof.

They are just some of the countless dozens of victims worldwide of the persistent rumours that Dame Maggie Smith will not return to the hit television series Downton Abbey. Filming on the third series is currently underway, to be telecast at the end of the year in Britain, and in January 2013 in the United States.


The latest round of suicides followed an article in the London Daily Mail that the beloved actress, age 77, had asked Downton creator Julian Fellowes to write her out of the series at the end of this season. Although a press representative for the series’ producers, Carnival Films, denied the rumours and described them as “complete nonsense,” it was too late to save Lucinda Quince, Olivia Hammermill, or Tertius Cosgrove, just three of the estimated 97 Downton suicides last week in greater London alone.

A representative for Scotland Yard confirmed that no television-related death toll had reached such numbers in Britain since actor David Tennant accidentally described himself as “the Last Doctor” in an interview with TV Times. British morgues were overflowing for at least a fortnight until that rumour was put to rest.

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