Downton Abbey - Series 1 DVD Box Set

RRP: £24.99

Best Price: £7.49

If there’s one thing we Brits are good at, it’s making period drama. We live in a country rife with history, with characters battling class and status, and it’s almost effortless to pluck a date out of the air and put some TV drama in it. But, with the sheer quantity of costume drama on our screens, how do you go about making your drama stand out? How do you create something that pleases the loyal fans but injects some much-needed energy into the story?

Downton Abbey, from veteran writer and actor Julian Fellowes (Vanity Fair, Gosford Park), brings a somewhat unique style to an essentially simple concept - a big house, a posh family and their sometimes jealous, sometimes dedicated servants. Here, though, it’s lightness of touch that makes the show so watchable - a sense of humour that lingers on the surface, with contradictory, passionate character traits bubbling below. In some ways, Downton takes its queue from that other mainstay of British television - the soap. We follow a multitude of characters, different people with different lots in life, and watch as their lives intertwine in exciting and surprising ways. Fellowes has picked a title that almost belongs next to Coronation Street - a place name that links these disparate characters together and forces them into conflict.

Through the first series included here, the sinking of the Titanic and terrible run of bad luck results in no heir presumptive for the Downton estate - which provides much of the ongoing drama across the seven episodes. It also means that, alongside the details of characters you’ll quickly grow to love, there’s an epic story of money and power driving things along. It’s in this composite that Downton Abbey really shines - the epic contrasted against the personal, the wealthy contrasted against the working.

Downton Abbey is a lavish, polished period drama with some shocking grit and darkness underneath the glamour - an a costume piece that is, ultimately, the absolute best of its kind.