Downton Abbey and the consultants

SCENE: The drawing room in Downton Abbey.  Shafts of autumnal sunlight reveal an overweight Labrador in one corner, and a flip chart in the other.  The Earl of Grantham walks in examining his cuffs.

THE EARL: Damn.  I seem to have got yellow highlighter all over the place.  Bates spent last night scrubbing my shirt, but it just won’t come out.

He trips, having failed to notice the maid who is busy picking individual motes of dust out of the rug.

THE EARL: I suppose I should be grateful it’s not pink.

SCENE: The library.  Lady Mary is sitting on the sofa fiddling with her valium bottle.  Lady Edith and Brandon sit opposite, pretending not to notice.  The Earl enters.

THE EARL: Right, you all know why we’re here.  We received the consultants’ report this morning and it’s every bit as bad as we expected.

The Dowager Duchess raises an eyebrow.  A potted plant in the corner wilts.

DOWAGER DUCHESS: You know I never really held with the idea of bringing them in.  One of them stole my watch.

THE EARL: Now, look, we’ve been through all that…

BRANDON: Focus!

THE EARL: Quite.  So it’s official: we’ve run out of plot.  We came storming out of the Great War with bags of the stuff, but the roaring twenties are taking their toll and, apart from hemlines rising, THERE’S NOT MUCH GOING ON!

LADY MARY: [Washing down a handful of pills with a glass of whisky]: Actually, I think we could do a lot more with the hemlines story – you know, above the knee, fraying.

LADY EDITH: Don’t be silly: people want murder and mayhem.  They expect story-lines positively brimming with action – and we give them Bates.

THE EARL: Have we actually given them Bates?  I mean, he still needs to get this highlighter out.

BRANDON: So what do the consultants suggest we do?  Is there an implementation plan?

THE EARL: Is the Pope a Catholic? There’s a 15-point plan which involves top-level changes, mentoring of some of the middle-ranking aristocrats and then there’s the biggie.  They suggest bringing forward the Second World War.

LADY EDITH: Oh, jolly good.

BRANDON: And we do this… how?

The conversation is interrupted by Carson, bringing in the tea tray.

THE EARL: Carson, you heard what the consultants had to say, what do you think?

CARSON: I thought it was excellent, my lord…

The Dowager Duchess raises another eyebrow.  Lady Mary wilts.

CARSON: … I particularly liked the bits where they said our ability to bring forward the Second World War would be based on us all working together as a team, upstairs and downstairs, and that for change to be sustainable, those on the frontline, if we’re really to engage their enthusiasm,  need to be feel complete ownership of the process, if not the entire estate.

There is stunned silence. 

THE EARL: Actually, I think we can do a lot with hemlines.