Alastair Bruce on Jazz, Barbecue and Life After Downton

For the last six seasons of Downton Abbey, Alastair Bruce has served as the period drama’s historical advisor. From reminding actors to sit up straight to insisting upon which door servants may use to enter the dining room, Bruce has ensured that the show is as true to history as possible.

Just before his presentation at the National World War I Museum last Thursday, presented by KCPT, Bruce answered a couple questions about his work on the series and his plans for the future.

Kansas City is a jazz town. Can you talk to the historical significance of introducing the character of jazz singer Jack Ross in season four?

Well, I think that what jazz represented to the British isn’t something that will be so clear to an American audience. You see, we’d been through the Great War together as nations fighting this madness that was the trenches of Western Europe. And so many people had died… And I think the survivors had a tremendous sense of guilt. And somehow the freedom of expression that jazz embodied spoke more fluently to the restricted, tight, and starched world of the British than perhaps it even did here… When Jack Ross walks into the house we know precisely by his reaction that certainly Carson has never seen a black man before. He’s probably read in books of the Empire that they exist, but that they are the tribesfolk of Africa or the descendants of those who were traded as slaves. But there was this sort of shock in his eye because in this place where no foreigner could possibly reach, here was this alien. And as a historical advisor working with Julian (Fellowes), I thought in advising the director on that day that we were actually shaping that scene that wouldn’t it be a good idea if Jack sits in Carson’s chair? Because to Jack it is a chair, but to everybody in the house it is an emblem of status that knows no equal. So that was part of the research I suppose, but it was more about using the lever of jazz as a means to show that here was this constrained society that had followed the moral requirements for generation after generation and the First World War made them say, “Enough, we must now be free.”

Thinking back over the series, if you had to identify a particular scene or detail that we as viewers might not pick up on, but is a big deal to you as a historian, what would it be?

Well, let me tell you what we didn’t get right. We decided to take the accents back because if we had done (them), I don’t think anyone would have watched it.

I think that what I was most proud of is there is a point where Lady Rose is presented at court at Buckingham Palace. And Julian had this in 1923 and I was slightly nervous, because at the First World War it was quite some time before Buckingham Palace went back to the old fashioned system of holding courts at which women were presented… I went into the archives at Windsor Castle and I found the very documents relating to the precise court we were seeking to recreate. And I covered my clothes with dust as I merged into the very depth of the detail and I found the document from the Director of Music sent up through the private secretary to King George V himself with a recommendation for the music that should be played and at the bottom it had, “Approved GRI” in ink. And I wrote down all the music and we played it in the background. And nobody will know, but it was right.

For a full day of filming, the goal was to get about four-and-a-half usable minutes. If you had to jump in at a moment’s notice to say “don’t do something,” that must have been stressful.

(The cast and crew) were very nice; they called me “The Oracle.” I think they could have called me the mosquito or something like that. I think what really annoyed them was once I came in and they were filming on a very hot day in the summer in Ealing Studios, which itself can get particularly heated. They filmed a bed scene with a sheet and an eiderdown. Now I can hear your readers’ intake of breathe, because they know as I do that you can certainly have a sheet on its own; you can have a sheet and a blanket; and you can have a sheet, a blanket and an eiderdown, but you CANNOT have a sheet and an eiderdown. And so I said, “Stop. We don’t have a blanket.” And they all looked at me as if I was mad, and a blanket of course is off-white and a sheet is white. And they said you can’t even see it. And I said, “I can see in this monitor that there is no blanket.” And the director was very charming and said, “But Alastair, on this occasion just wind your neck in and let’s get on with it.” And I was forlorn and I got up and I wandered with my head cast down and my tail very much between my legs out to see (series producer) Liz Trubridge and she could see in my eyes a great sense of disappointment. And she said, “What is it?” And I said, “They are filming with a sheet and an eiderdown.” She said, “They’re not!” She stormed down with me and went into the studio and said, “Stop. There will be a blanket.” And there was a blanket and they started the shots again.

Since you are known as a man of manners, what would you have done had we offered a big, messy plate of Kansas City BBQ?

Well I think it would have been polite to learn how you eat it and then I would have eaten it that way because that’s the protocol. I hope I don’t wander around making judgments about how anybody does anything. For instance, somebody like me in 100 years time might be asked to recreate how a barbecue was eaten in Kansas City in 2015, and I hope my successor would come in and not worry about how he or she eats at the time, but to precisely get right as a matter of protocol how you eat it now. We had a big thing about asparagus. There was a drama because the asparagus had arrived, was on plates and (they wanted to know) how were they to eat it. And of course the correct way to eat if you’re in an aristocratic house at that time was using your fingers, dipping it in butter and putting it straight into your mouth. I was away from the set for the day and I said, “You can only do that if there are rose bowls of water, in order that you can clean your fingers and dry them on your napkin.” They didn’t have rose bowls, so I said, “Right. Chop up the asparagus, put it in a white sauce and it can be beans,” because if you can’t do the whole of it, then you can’t have the half of it. And anyway you know in these great houses they used to call asparagus “Housemaid’s Horror,” because in those days they all had potties under their beds and asparagus has the most frightful effect on people.

Now that Downton Abbey is at an end, what is next for you?

Well, I want to return to what I was doing, which is working in the National Armoury effectively and developing a better understanding of the traditions of Britain for a new generation. The British are awash with some wonderful, extraordinary, and fascinating history, which is celebrated among some of the ceremonial that we have amongst us and I really understand all of that. I am an expert in English and Byzantine coronation ritual. And perhaps in my lifetime, if I am granted sufficient life, I will witness a coronation. But I was chosen and appointed to be one of the Queen’s heralds because I am an expert in that department and one day it is that group of people who will revive, dust down, and present another coronation as the inauguration for a new head of state of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I want to shape a better understanding of what it’s all about.

If you missed this special event, don’t fret! There will be more opportunities to join your fellow Downton fans around the final season, including a “Downton Club: Roaring 20s” cocktail event and screening on Dec. 10 at the National World War I Museum and Memorial.