There was a trope in late 19th and early 20th century French and I think German literature: the rich Jewish woman married off to the penniless Christian aristocrat. He’s a decadent, in all the artistic-movement senses of the term that to this day go over my head, but also as in, a decaying, last-of-the-line sort, as well as someone whose tastes well exceed his budget. She — or her banker father — has social aspirations, and the idea of a title, maybe a castle, is appealing. They do not marry for love or tradition. Neither Jews nor gentiles approve.
That’s effectively what’s going on, but gender-swapped, in “To The Manor Born.” It is, as sitcoms go, only a notch more watchable than “Friends,” but on Britbox and more conducive to falling asleep. It’s about Audrey fforbes Hamilton, a merry but broke widow, forced to sell her mansion (and live in a “lodge” that in Toronto would go for $5 million CAD but whatever). She sells it to supermarket magnate Richard DeVere, who conveniently for a sitcom never works, and spends all his time in one room, despite having dozens of them. It has the feel of better shows (grand rooms, upper class twit minor characters), but there’s something missing. What?
Part of it is the intense cringe of Marjory, the spinster friend. No one deserves romance, as in is entitled to it, but she sure deserves better than her frenemy Audrey, who keeps her around just to feel superior. Marjory’s eternally unrequited crush on Richard DeVere, with whom Audrey is having a rom-com, is just pathetic, depressing.
But then there’s the whole premise: Audrey sort of stays on as lady of the manor, teaching Richard (at times against his will) how to properly run the house. This isn’t about, like, setting up the water bill. It’s vaguely feudal (or more than vaguely in one ep), and involves all sorts of social and charitable obligations: hunts, balls, parish funds, laborers who evidently in 1980 did not have indoor plumbing. And Richard wants in on the whole thing. He doesn’t just want to be a rich dude with a huge house. He wants to play at being lord of the manor, using his money to deflect the wariness of the villagers, particularly the posh ones, who view him not just as new money but a foreigner.
So about that. Richard himself gives no indication of being anything other than an upper class Englishman but behind the scenes, popping up here and there, is his great whopping embarrassing Jewish mother. But not Jewish. She is from Czechoslovakia, and still has their real last name. Trope-wise, at least if this were an American sitcom, one would have to call her coded Jewish, as in like how the Costanzas are ‘Italian,’ but… I mean I know intellectually there are and were British Jews, but where Jewishness fits into Britcoms remains a mystery, and maybe she really is from Czechoslovakia and that’s where her foreignness begins and ends. In any case, she’s overbearing, babying, and wants her little boy (well into middle age) to settle down… with Audrey. Long before the show gives any indication of chemistry in that regard, she’s marrying them off in her dreams. Is she a romantic? A social climber?
Maybe the problem with the show is that it wants the viewer to be charmed by the banter. To stay on tenterhooks for the will-they-won’t-they. (They will, but only once the last ep brings random plot twists that have Audrey once again owning the manor and Richard giving up his job.) But it’s sort of like, who cares if they do or don’t? It’s all a business matter. She wants to maintain not so much the lifestyle to which she’s grown accustomed as the only life she can imagine: being lady of that specific house. And he, well, he’s happy to have a woman with exactly those aspirations, a household manager with the precise experience needed, basically fall into his lap.
Or: Is the problem that Richard is meant to be attractive but does nothing whatsoever for me?
Or: Is it that Audrey’s outfits are sometimes good but she’s clearly 6 feet tall and I have no sense of if I should attempt to recreate them (from my existing wardrobe what with pandemic and end of retail)?
It might be that Audrey’s plight is just too ridiculous. She has no money, but she has to have a butler, and couldn’t possibly get a job. She resents everyone (like the woman who runs the village shop) who expects her to pay her bills, and the show wants you to take her side. And maybe this is my own weakness as a viewer, that I can’t quite make the leap and accept that (as is sometimes more or less spelled out) Audrey knows nothing else, and isn’t trying to be insufferable, but truly doesn’t know how to function in the world of obligation-havers. But I want her to pay her bills! And so help me but I think Richard could do better, biased as I apparently am if not to the self-made rich as a caste, but certainly to them over the idle but entitled.