Upstairs Downstairs

Upstairs Downstairs (2010): All the Real-World Drama Brewing Behind Eaton Place

The Holland household wasn’t the only place hiding secrets. Behind the lush costumes and polished silverware, the BBC revival of Upstairs Downstairs was a swirling cocktail of exits, rivalries, “sexed up” scandals, and backstage bad luck that would make even Lady Persie blush.

Cast Feuds & Ratings Wars

Jean Marsh vs. Downton Abbey (and Hugh Bonneville)

• Co-creator and original Rose Buck, Jean Marsh, was not subtle when ITV’s Downton Abbey arrived just as the Upstairs Downstairs revival finally got through 40 years of rights wrangling. She dryly told the BBC that both shows suddenly existing at the same time “might be a coincidence. And I might be the Queen of Belgium.”
• Downton star Hugh Bonneville hit back on Twitter, saying he thought Marsh was “bigger than that” and complaining that she was “running down Downton while bigging up Upstairs,” adding the very British jab that “Downton never downed Up when upping Down.”^[1]
• The tension was extra juicy because the original Upstairs Downstairs had been an ITV smash – the same network that later passed on the revival in favour of pouring its money into Downton Abbey instead.^[1]

The Battle of the Viewing Figures

• The reboot’s Boxing Day debut was solid at around 7.5 million viewers, but by the end of Series 2 it was limping along at about 4.5 million – a whopping six million fewer than its swisher ITV rival Downton Abbey.
• Commentators noted that Upstairs was “slow to produce a follow-up” and lost momentum while Downton became a juggernaut, with grumbling “murmurings of ‘Not fair!’ from the Upstairs camp, as if Downton Abbey never had the right to exist.”^[2]

On-Set Drama & Backstage Chaos

Dame Eileen Atkins’ Script Mutiny & Sudden Exit

• Dame Eileen Atkins – co-creator of the original series and the formidable Lady Maud Holland in the revival – walked away from Series 2 “amid rumours that she was unhappy with the scripts.”^[2]
• The BBC diplomatically announced “with much sadness” that she’d decided not to appear and “we respect her decision,” but quietly confirmed she was “reportedly unhappy with the direction the new scripts are taking.”
• Her abrupt departure came just two months before filming, forcing writers to kill off Lady Maud off‑screen and even bump off her pet monkey Solomon in a bizarre gas‑proof pram accident.^[2] Fans still treat this as Exhibit A in “proof they were making it up as they went along.”

Jean Marsh’s Health Crisis Derails the Revival

• As Series 2 geared up, Marsh suffered a minor stroke that meant she would “miss the start of the next series” while recovering.
• She later revealed she’d also had a heart attack after filming the first series, with Digital Spy reporting that she had to be largely written out of the second run.
• One Digital Spy thread bluntly summed it up: the show was “beset by backstage problems, from Eileen Atkins’ departure to Jean Marsh having to be written out for much of the second series.”

Scandals & “Sexed‑Up” Storylines

The Lesbian Romance That Set the Tabs Off

• As ratings pressure mounted, BBC bosses decided to “sex up Upstairs Downstairs with a lesbian love affair in a bid to ramp up the ratings,” casting Emilia Fox opposite Alex Kingston in Series 2.
• Fox cheerfully told Metro the pair made “great lovers” on screen, while PinkNews and other outlets teased the show’s “covert and difficult” lesbian relationship as a big hook for the new season.
• A later academic piece noted that the Daily Mail sniffed at the revival’s lesbian storyline as a “cheap ploy to boost ratings,” and some viewers complained to BBC’s Points of View that it wasn’t “the job of the BBC to promote this kind of behaviour.”
• Fans are still divided over whether Blanche and Portia were groundbreaking or just late‑stage panic in a sinking ship.

Cancellation Tea & Fan Theories

The Quiet Axing

• In April 2012, after only nine episodes across two series, the BBC “quietly announced that it won’t be recommissioning Upstairs Downstairs.”^[2]
• Commentators pointed to the ratings slide, internal upheavals, and the failure to ride the Downton wave rather than be crushed by it.^[2]

“The BBC Never Gave It a Chance” – Fans Clap Back

• On Digital Spy, fans argued the show “definitely deserved a third series,” blaming its fate on bad timing and chaos behind the scenes rather than lack of potential.^[6]
• A recurring fan theory on those forums: the BBC wanted its own “safe Downton,” and when Upstairs didn’t immediately become that, it was quietly dropped in favour of other prestige projects.^[6]

Wild Reputation: Sex, Class & Queer Panic

Queer Storylines as Ratings Bait?

• A long-form cultural critique lumped the 2010 revival into a broader trend of domestic-service dramas using queer characters as scandal fodder. It specifically highlighted Upstairs Downstairs’ lesbian plot as fitting a pattern where queerness is used as “spicy” yet still coded as dangerous or problematic, noting the Mail’s “cheap ploy” framing and the moralising viewer complaints.^[10]
• That same piece argued these shows often portray queer servants as “treacherous outsiders” or “doubly criminal,” turning their sexuality into another form of deviance – exactly the sort of thing that makes a BBC executive sweat and a tabloid sub‑editor rub their hands.^[10]