Series 1
In October 2009, it was announced that the BBC was to revive the series as two 90-minute episodes to be broadcast on BBC One in the autumn of 2010, written by Heidi Thomas and set in 1936, six years after the original series finished.
The original series had concluded at the time of the Great Depression in 1930, with the Bellamy family having lost all its money in the crash of 1929. James Bellamy, the only son of Richard, Viscount Bellamy, had been responsible for persuading not only his family but also the faithful family servant, Rose Buck, to invest all their money in the stock market. Consequently, James committed suicide and the Bellamy family, as well as all the servants, left Eaton Place to start new lives. Mr. Hudson, the butler, and Mrs. Bridges, the cook, married and moved to the seaside, taking the kitchen maid, Ruby Finch, to live with them; Edward, the chauffeur, and his wife Daisy, the maid, were given new positions by the Bellamys' cousin, Georgina, and her husband, Lord Stockbridge, in their new country house; and Rose was offered a job as maid to Lord and Lady Bellamy at their small villa.
The new series sees Jean Marsh, as the only original cast member from the LWT series, reprising the role of Rose Buck. She now runs a domestic service agency, after having spent time away nursing a relative in the country. She returns to 165 Eaton Place as housekeeper to the new owners, the Holland family.
There are no explanations as to what has happened to the previous owners or their staff during the intervening six-year period. In the first instalment, the Bellamy family and the original staff are only fleetingly referenced when Mrs Thackeray, the new cook, refers to 165 Eaton Place as "the Bellamy house". However, Rose does mention Lord Bellamy as "the late", meaning he has died by 1936. Rose also mentions that a silver teapot, seen in some scenes of the first episode, was given to her as a gift by Lord Bellamy in appreciation of her years of "impeccable" service to the family. In another scene when Lady Agnes gives Rose the keys to the wine cellar, she mentions that they bear the name of Mr. Hudson on a label.
In August 2010, the BBC announced that the planned two 90-minute shows would instead be three hour-long episodes, with Keeley Hawes, Ed Stoppard, Eileen Atkins, Anne Reid, Claire Foy, Adrian Scarborough, Art Malik, Ellie Kendrick, Blake Ritson, and Nico Mirallegro joining Jean Marsh in the cast. [2] Filming began in Cardiff in the middle of August 2010, with parts of the city transformed into 1930s Belgravia for exterior scenes, and the interiors shot in the BBC's Llandaff studios in Cardiff. [3] Further filming of exterior scenes took place in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, in September 2010, with a terrace in Clarendon Square doubling up as Eaton Place.
The new Upstairs Downstairs was made in-house by BBC Wales as a co-production with Masterpiece on PBS, [4] and was broadcast on BBC1 with the first episode shown on 26 December 2010. A soundtrack album of music from the new series by composer Daniel Pemberton was released on iTunes. [5] The three episodes were picked up by overseas broadcasters, including ABC in Australia, NRK in Norway, Sky in New Zealand, DR in Denmark, YLE in Finland, IBA in Israel, and TV4 in Sweden. [6]
Series 2
BBC1 commissioned six 60-minute episodes of the drama to be broadcast in 2012, [7] with Stoppard, Hawes, Reid, Foy, Malik, Ritson, Mirallegro, Scarborough and Jackson all returning to the series. Sarah Gordy and Alexia James, introduced during series 1 as Hallam's sister Pamela, who has Down's Syndrome, and the household's Jewish ward Lotte, respectively, also continue to appear on a recurring basis. Eileen Atkins does not appear in series 2, having stated in the press that she was unhappy with the development of her character of Hallam's mother Maud; [8] so Maud is said to have died in the time between the first and second series. Ellie Kendrick also left the cast, with the character of Ivy replaced in the household by Eunice McCabe (Ami Metcalf). The relationship between Eunice and Mrs Thackeray, the cook, is quite similar to the interaction between Ruby the kitchen maid (played by Jenny Tomasin) and Mrs Bridges the cook (played by Angela Baddeley) in the original 1971 series.
Jean Marsh, after suffering from a stroke and heart attack, was unable to attend the majority of filming for the series; scripts were altered shortly before filming to accommodate her absence. [9] [10] On-screen, Rose is confined to a sanatorium after contracting tuberculosis, and appears in just two scenes over the series.
Other new additions to the cast include Alex Kingston as Blanche Mottershead, the younger half-sister of Maud, and Laura Haddock as maid Beryl Ballard. Special guest stars in the series include Kenneth Cranham as Sergeant Ashworth, Michael Landes as American multimillionaire Caspar Landry, Emilia Fox as Blanche's lover Lady Portia Alresford, and Sarah Lancashire as Violet Whisset, a love interest for the butler Mr Pritchard.
