“I am m’lady and it is curious if people treat you as m’lady how you grow into the position,” says Lady Olliff-Cooper, in real life a casualty doctor called Anna, on the 2002 historical reality TV show The Edwardian Country House. “Sir John’s taken to his title like a duck to water and I think it’s really brought out the best in his personality. I even call him Sir John now.”
The premise of The Edwardian Country House, produced by Channel Four and broadcast in the US as Manor House, was not that different from other reality TV shows: put people in a house (in this case, the Scottish mansion Manderston), give them rules to live by, and film them. Re-watching it 16 years on, there’s something quaint about the dinginess of the “downstairs” scenes, and the way that the producers, presented with a group of half-decent looking young people, did not immediately strip them down to their briefs, but instead forced them to wear high-necked shirts and skirts that hid their ankles. As for the participants, it’s like they’ve never heard of sponsorship deals – their sole motivation for spending three months of their lives scrubbing dishes seems to be connecting with their ancestors, and history.
Content from our partners
