Natasha Solomons is the author of the new novel “The Song of Hartgrove Hall.” Her other novels include “The Gallery of Vanished Husbands” and “The House at Tyneford.” She lives in Dorset, England. Music plays a big role in The Song of Hartgrove Hall, and serves as a form of communication for some of the…
I have a confession: I am completely, utterly addicted to Downton Abbey. It might go against my progressive politics, or , but – let us tell the truth – it is a soap opera in gilded clothes. The sixth and final season is about to premiere next month in the United Kingdom (Americans will have…
“Downton Abbey” has come a long way since its 1912 beginnings. The Crawleys have weathered the sinking of the Titanic, World War I, near-financial ruin, numerous family deaths, scandal and even Jewish intermarriage (gasp!). But don’t expect to see Nazis planes bearing down on the Earl of Grantham any time soon. The last season of…
A disapproving Lord Sinderby (left) with his wife and son, who married a Grantham lass against his father’s wishes. Once, when radio days were young, there was a silly — but funny — explanation about how radio works: “Imagine a huge dog with its head in Tel Aviv and its tail in Jerusalem, and when…
“The Cobbler,” the recently released movie directed by Tom McCarthy starring Adam Sandler as (obviously, Jewish) cobbler Max Simkin, who discovers a stitching machine with magical powers in his basement, has received dismal reviews — 7% on Rotten Tomatoes and a whopping 5.7 out of 10 rating on Internet Movie Database. Oh well, you might…
I write in support of Lord Sinderby. Surely you’ve seen his character on “Downton Abbey”: more dour than Carson the butler, more rigid than Lord Grantham, Sinderby is a self-made Jew who is implacably opposed to his son’s marriage to a non-Jew. On the very morning of the wedding in a registry (no church or…
Julian Fellowes was to the manor born. It just wasn’t a “Downton Abbey”-size manor. Fellowes, of course, is the creator, sole writer, and executive producer of “Downton Abbey,” arguably the greatest global television phenomenon of the 21st century. Here in the U.S., where it is concluding its fifth season, it is the most popular series…
Getty Images “Are you watching your Jewish show tonight?” my husband asks as I turn on the telly, as they call it here. I’m not settling down to watch “The Goldbergs,” or the quirky challah-centered British sitcom, Friday Night Dinner.” No, I’m tuned to a show many of us would have described in its early…
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