Happy birthday, Masterpiece Theatre

My parents adored Masterpiece Theatre, and some of my fondest memories and favorite shows came from those Sunday evenings together in the seventies and early eighties, until I went off to college, especially “Poldark”, “Last of the Mohicans”, “Upstairs, Downstairs”, and “The Duchess of Duke Street”. We were such big fans of “The Duchess of Duke Street” and Charlie that in 1979 my father took me to see Christopher Cazenove in Alan Ayckbourne’s “Joking Apart” at the Globe Theatre in London; what a treat that was, and how exciting.  In recent years, my father amassed quite the collection of period drama DVDs, so every day could be Sunday.

I am sure it would thoroughly annoy both my mother and my father — especially my mother — to be missing the newest shows, the latest “Upstairs, Downstairs” and the new “Downton Abbey”. I’m looking forward to “Downton Abbey” myself, and since I live in a PBS-free zone, I’ve ordered the DVD from Amazon.com, to be delivered to NYC when we arrive to sort out the apartment later this month (since the Canadian price, almost twice as much, is ridiculous). I plan to watch it, raising a drink to my mother, who, wherever she is, has doubtless tracked down Alistair Cooke to natter on about the rent control apartments in New York they each enjoyed, life behind the scenes at the Bentinck Hotel, and that usurper, Russell Baker. Happy times…