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THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING
| A gilt-free glimpse at the Victorian age
By Diane White, Globe Columnist, 6/19/2000
Paul and Joyce Bowler and their four children were chosen by Wall to
Wall Television, the British producers, from more than 400 families who
applied to live as middle-class people would have in 1900. Joyce, a school
inspector and history buff, was eager to go back in time. Paul, a Royal
Marine, agreed to participate because he felt he owed it to Joyce, who has
coped with the challenges of being a military wife. The family has moved
13 times in 16 years.
Unfortunately, Paul's well-intentioned payback turned out to be a
disaster, especially for Joyce, who learned firsthand that an ordinary
woman's life in 1900 was a mind-numbing round of drudgery and boredom. The
series provides a dose of reality for romantics who think Victorian
England was a Merchant-Ivory production, all cream teas and country
houses.
The Bowler family - Kathryn, 17, Joe, 9, and 11-year-old twins Hilary
and Ruth, were chosen for their sense of humor and their flexibility. They
knew they'd be required to wear period clothing, corsets included, and to
confine themselves to food and products that would have been available in
1900. But they were unprepared for the rigors of using slop pots,
laundering by hand, and cooking on a coal-fired stove.
Neither did they anticipate the boredom of the low-tech life. Deprived
of television, telephone, recorded music, and other modern diversions, the
Bowlers were hard pressed to amuse themselves, but they tried, with
homemade plays and games and projects.
The mood was upbeat in the first episode, which aired last Monday. The
Bowlers were looking forward to their experiment. Viewers saw the house
being prepared, stripped of electricity and central heating and refitted
with gas lamps, fireplaces, and period plumbing. Decorated in authentic
Victorian style, the house looked comfortable and welcoming. It wasn't. By
the second episode, airing tonight at 9 on Channel 2, the Bowlers were
coming unglued. Joe was refusing to eat. Joyce was at the breaking point
after only three days of cold baths, scorched rhubarb compote, endless
dusting, no shampoo, no junk food. The camera followed her to the
backyard, where she wept and raged and vowed, ''I'm not going back in!''
The woman wouldn't have lasted a day on ''Survivor.''
I couldn't help thinking that the Bowlers could have used a little help
from Martha Stewart. She'd have told them to quit whining and get
cracking, or else. Of course Martha would have insisted on employing a
full staff of servants. The Bowlers, like people of their means in 1900,
had only a maid-of-all-work, Elizabeth, who, as the series unfolded,
turned out to be the most interesting member of the ''cast.'' The drudgery
and class resentment of 1900-style servitude changed Elizabeth, who by the
last episode appeared to be well on the way to becoming a feminist
activist.
The Bowlers endured, complaining, for the agreed-upon three months.
Joyce waxed weepy when it was time to leave. ''I don't want to go home,''
she insisted, not very persuasively.
It was easier to believe Kathryn, who, asked if she'd do it again,
said, ''Definitely not. It would be nice watching somebody else do it
though, watch them suffer.''
After quitting the hated house, the Bowlers' made a beeline for a
Burger King.
This story ran on page E01 of the Boston Globe on
6/19/2000. |
he new four-part PBS
miniseries ''The 1900 House'' is kind of a Victorian version of
''Survivor,'' except on this show there's no million-dollar prize and all
the volunteers long to get tossed out of the thoroughly demodernized
London townhouse in which they are stuck for three months.