WELCOME TO THE GRAND

Unfortunately, there is no abatement to the city's howling for the Reading Public Library's closure. Along the same line of dreary news, Philadelphia is in the middle of having at least eleven of its public library's doors closed due to that metropolis' budget crisis. Overall, our public libraries are being cut down at the knee, and the future looks disheartening and bleak.

Rather than brood on the exceptionally unpleasant strain of current events, I've discovered (yet another) British period piece drama and have been happily losing myself in the heartrending traumas sustained by other (albeit fictitious) people who lived in the era of my grandparents' childhood. Escapist television programming, in my humble opinion, is vastly underrated...

**WARNING, WARNING** SPOILERS__SPOILERS__ SPOILERS__!!!

The Grand was produced by Granada Television in 1997 and 1998. For anyone familiar with the venerable series The Duchess of Duke Street, The Grand endeavors to follow the same general idea of showcasing the lives of a large, fashionable hotel's owners, staff, and guests.

(Please know that this series is not actually a Main Library holding, it's on the City Bookmobile--but placing a hold on the series will have it brought to the Main for your convenience!)

The series transpires in the Roaring Twenties during the years before the onset of the Great Depression.

The Grand is a family-run enterprise. Brothers John Bannerman (Michael Siberry) and Marcus Bannerman (Mark McGann) have inherited the massive, Manchester, England-based hotel from their deceased father. Infrequent appearances are made by their imperious mother, Mary (Louie Ramsay), who muddles about without making much impact.

John is married--at first, happily--to Sarah (Julia St. John). Marcus has his lady friend (and later, wife), Ruth, although the two seem to hate one another. The issue is Marcus' undying love for his brother's wife. Poor John is a total sucker and, in truth, a cuckold I found deeply unsympathetic.

John and Sarah have two children: Stephen (played by Stephen Moyer of current True Blood fame in the first season, then repalced by the less charistmatic Ifan Meredith in the second series) and Adele (Camilla Power). At the beginning of the program Stephen has just returned from the British Army, having been stationed in France since the close of World War I. Adele is a petulant teenager whose presence is generally unnecessary.

The Bannermans have plenty of infighting and Knots-Landing-esque slapdowns (literally) to keep the viewer entertained. But it's the rest of the hotel staff that makes The Grand great.

Miss Esme Harkness is an elegant, upper-middle-aged woman who has made The Grand her permanent home. Mrs. Mary Bannerman, dimly remembering the lady's name but unable to pin down the context, badgers her for clues as to how she came into her money. Miss Harkness drops hints but never divulges anything outright--rather flimsily, it is soon established that she is a former prostitute and madame (who occasionally entertains clients in her rooms). Mary finally gets to the truth and confronts Miss Harkness, who brutally rebuffs her attacker's threats of eviction with a cool statement, "Perhaps I'll tell the papers about me and Charlie". Charles was, of course, Mary's late husband, the founder of the hotel, and a well-respected pillar of Mancunian society.

Miss Harkness stays.

Esme is played by veteran actress Susan Hampshire, a lifelong treasure of the BBC set, who starred in such epics as The Pallisers and The Barchester Chronicles (both well worth watching--also, incidentally, both available at The Main).

The hotel staff are governed by avuncular (if stoic) Jacob Collins (Tim Healy), the porter, and Miss Sylvie Harvey (Christine Mackie), head of housekeeping, who is quick-witted (if vinegar-tongued.) Mr. Collins' only child was executed for having gone A.W.O.L. from the British Army in France. Miss Harvey constantly refers to her husband, whom her subordinates sometimes doubt actually exists.

One of the longest-serving maids is Kate Morris (Rebecca Callard), whose spritely adorableness is belied by her knowing nature. Monica Jones (Jane Danson) is brought on board early in the series and Kate trains her; Monica is soon the darling of Miss Harkness, who attempts to instruct the teenager in the ways of ladylike behavior (nothing seamy, mind). Daft Monica believes a visiting businessman has fallen in love with her and will take her away from her filthy job as a maid, only to have three of his associates attack her. Monica kills one of the men and is peremptorily sentenced to death for his murder.

Appropriately enough, she is hanged on the very morning of Marcus' doomed nuptials to Ruth.

Clive Evans (Paul Warriner) is head waiter and bartender at The Grand's restaurant and fights his same-sex inclinations as he succumbs to the seduction of a renowned theatrical guest. Poor Clive conceives a plan to try and romance the indomitable Kate in an effort to "overcome" his gayness. Lynne Milligan (Naomi Radcliffe) gives vaudeville a try before learning the show manager is only allowing her to sing onstage in the hopes of manipulating her to his own illicit ends. And all poor Brenda Potter (Maria Mescki) can seem to talk about is her mother and chocolate cookies.

The drama of this series originates in much besides the sometimes down-and-dirty dealings among the Bannermans, the staff, and the guests. Raging social issues, such as class conflict, sexual education, incest, murder, unwed mothers, workers' rights, and adutlery (but to name a few!) erupt in every episode.

I read a critic's harsh words for this series on the Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com/), who claims that: "they [the producers of the series] insist on applying modern cultural and societal mores to a time period which was much more conservative than our own, and which kept these issues - if they even came up at all - private and between families".

I find that logic to be entirely specious.

Of course women conceived out of wedlock in the 1920s. Married couples cheated on one another. Unskilled workers were dismissed without a thought. And families were torn asunder by disloyalty, selfishness, and cruelty.

But the cast of The Grand also rises above the horrors of inhumanity: Mr. Collins is enfolded in the warm support of the staff when he reaches a crisis of existence in facing his son's death. Kate tries--in vain--to steer Monica from the path of self-destruction on which she is bent. For all her shrill shrieking, Mrs. Harvey genuinely cares for the welfare of her girls, and often takes on the role of maternal surrogate in their lives. And reigning over them all is the piteous but benign Esme Harkness, whose faded beauty and gracious manners enchant (almost) everyone she meets.

So if, for whatever reason, you're in the mood to lose yourself completely in superbly-crafted escapist entertainment, check into The Grand.