Upstairs, Downstairs
Interview with Richard Marson

Richard Marson is a television producer and director. As well as directing the Upstairs, Downstairs Remembered documentary for LWT in 1996, and writing a tie-in booklet, he has also recently written Inside Updown - The Story of Upstairs, Downstairs which he hopes will be the definitive book about the making of the TV show.

Marson first became interested in Upstairs, Downstairs as a child in 1976. "I think it was reading the novelisations which were taken on holiday with us one summer. I was gripped by the characters and stories and then ITV announced a best of Upstairs, Downstairs season. There followed a huge family row when I wasn't allowed to stay up to watch them!"

After this special season, Upstairs, Downstairs vanished from the screen, only returning from time to time for the showing of an odd episode on special occasions. "I was at boarding-school in 1982 when ITV repeated Guest of Honour and I persuaded my housemaster to tape it on the house video - even though I didn't then own a video myself. I had one eye on posterity even then, you see!"

The fledgling Channel 4 re-ran the series in the early eighties. This was the first real chance for the common man, armed with a video recorder, to get a set of the episodes for viewing again at leisure. "I got to see the Channel 4 repeats and loved them but was gutted that they excluded the black and whites. In 1983 I got a contact to get me black and white film recordings of the missing episodes which meant I had a complete set. So all in all by ‘84 I was addicted!"

"My favourite season is the fourth. I thought the writing and acting of those First World War episodes was sublime. My least favourite episodes are some of the earlier ones where the acting is a bit melodramatic or forced - like A Cry for Help - though The Mistress and the Maids and The Path of Duty are fab." Although Richard’s favourite era of the show is in line with the general critical view, he finds it more tricky to isolate his single personal favourite: "Such a hard, hard question! If there was a gun pointing at my head, I'd say Distant Thunder which built up the pre-war tension brilliantly and had great scenes with some of my favourite actors, Meg Wynn Owen especially."

"If I'm being critical, the production technique of UpDown does look a bit like Neighbours now. But even the slight shakiness of the sets and the occasional 'soft' shot cannot detract from the scripts and performances."

As a freelance director searching around for a project in 1996, Marson saw a prime opportunity to combine work with pleasure and came up with an idea for a celebratory documentary to tie in with the 25th anniversary of the first episode of Upstairs, Downstairs. Somewhat unusually, he took his thoughts to LWT rather than vice versa: "I pitched various ideas - and Simon Shaps of LWT called back within two days saying, 'You're on!' Within two weeks we were in production!"

"It was originally commissioned as a half hour - that's 24 minutes on ITV. I was distraught - I just knew it couldn't be done any kind of justice at that length so I took a big gamble and for the same money and edit time produced two versions - a fifty minuter and a 24 minuter. I then got the Controller of LWT, who was understandably a bit pissed off at first, to view both - and he backed the longer version. This was only possible through incredibly detailed edit notes and planning but I think it was well worth it. I did offer a longer version to Brite, LWT's sales arm, but they weren't really interested - to be honest, as you know, their marketing of the show sucks!"

The chance to research LWT’s archives gave Richard the chance to do some parallel research for a future book about the show that he wanted to write. "I plumbed into loads of confidential written archives - stuff relevant to the documentary was filed next to stuff which was really revealing for the book."

Newspaper publicity at the time suggested that the documentary was to also contain an amount of peripheral footage, such as This Is Your Life appearances by the cast. "Loads of extra footage was viewed and considered but I thought that in the end viewers would be most interested in the central story of the series itself rather than its spin-off success." Richard was also asked to write a booklet to go alongside the documentary: "The tie-in came from LWT's in-house education department which wanted to offer support literature. So I took my £500 and cannibalised bits of the embryonic book."

LWT’s grandiose plans for the series’ 25th anniversary not only included the documentary and booklet, but also a repeat of the entire first season and a release of the complete series on home video. The videos never appeared and the repeats remained confined to the London area. I asked Marson why the plans had fizzled out in this way: "I think Granada's take-over of LWT didn't help. No one really believes in vintage stuff there - why should they? They reckon the TV market is so sophisticated that the only place for the family silver is in the dustbin - i.e. Granada Plus. I think they're missing a trick - look at the BBC’s success with Poldark and the fab The Duchess of Duke Street - but then who the fuck cares what some producer thinks? It's all marketing. The programme's biggest latter-day friend was LWT top guy Liam Hamilton who really believed in it but they change the hierarchy so often these days that it's hard for long term projects to be seen through."

After completing the documentry, Richard turned back to finishing his book on the show, although his idea for a ‘making of...’ book about Upstairs, Downstairs wasn’t unique. I asked him whether he had read Patty Lou Floyd’s 1988 effort Backstairs With Upstairs, Downstairs: "Yes. I thought it was a gushing, wasted opportunity and very biased - she clearly had some huge grudge against poor Jean Marsh. Typical of a certain kind of American bluergh!"

"I wanted to write the most comprehensive accurate book about the making of a legendary TV series I could - I really think it's a fascinating story. Freddy Shaughnessy gave me total access to his archive of scripts, notes and so on, which chart classic episodes from first scrawl onwards and I then read each stage of the draft, making notes etc. The fifty or so interviewees were also given 'right to reply' and that was incredibly useful. John Hawkesworth was also consulted on wider issues."

"I pitched it to various publishers but, although BoxTree flirted with the idea, the fizzling out of the repeats and videos ruined its chances. I think what we've lost in glossy production, we've gained in getting a much more comprehensive approach. But in the end, it's a glorified fan project and there’s nothing wrong with that."

Richard expanded on the format of the book: "Basic but very large! There are twenty chapters, one each per season, broken down episode by episode, and one on the planning of each season. There are chapters devoted to design, the Hawkesworth/Shaughnessy partnership, leading cast members, the design to finish the series and its aftermath and spin-offs. One of my favourite chapters goes into the horror that was the production of Thomas & Sarah!"

Thanks to Richard Marson for his time.

(Click here for a review of the book)

Please note: The book is now out-of-print. The only places I can suggest for copies might be Amazon Marketplace sellers or Ebay.