I was looking forward to watching the Downside Abbey programme, but was so irritated by the playacting that I could not enjoy it. I was expecting to see the monks going about their daily routine, but it was so stage managed it was untrue. Father Michael goes into the Refectory for breakfast, alone, takes the lid off the Burco boiler of a porridge pot and removes about a tablespoonful of porridge and puts it into his soup plate. He makes a second trip to collect a spoon, goes to the table, stands while he goes through the performance of blessing himself and the food before sitting then chasing the porridge around the plate raising mustard-spoonful amounts to his mouth. Next he goes to the Sacristy and puts his overalls on while another monk chases imaginary dust with a broom. We are then meant to believe he is carving the letter E of an inscription into a piece of furniture that has obviously already been finished, waxed and polished....and don't get me started on Christopher the Malteser and his bread making sequence!
