Upstairs, Downstairs (1971 TV Series) - Influence

Influence

The BBC series The Duchess of Duke Street is widely seen as the BBC's answer to Upstairs, Downstairs, not least because some of the same producers and writers worked on it, and it also has a theme tune by Faris. The 1990 BBC sitcom You Rang, M'Lord? also featured a similar situation. In the early 1990s, Marsh and Atkins created another successful period drama, The House of Eliott, for the BBC. In 1975, an American version, entitled Beacon Hill, debuted but due to low ratings it was soon cancelled, running for just thirteen episodes. Tom Wolfe called the series a plutography, i.e. a "graphic depiction of the lives of the rich".

A Monsterpiece Theater sketch starring Grover and Alistair Cookie from Sesame Street was also based upon Upstairs, Downstairs.

In 2000, a stop-motion animated series called Upstairs Downstairs Bears was based upon Upstairs, Downstairs.

Company Pictures' 2008 television series The Palace has been described as a "modern Upstairs, Downstairs" as it features the points of view of both a fictional royal family and their servants.

From November 2008 to January 2010 variations (played in different styles, e.g., a fugue, jazz, calypso, death metal) of the theme music were played on BBC Radio 4's PM programme to introduce a segment entitled "Upshares, Downshares", in which Nils Blythe ran through the day's business news. In November 2010, with the composer Alexander Faris's blessing, a special CD of collected versions was released to raise money for the charity Children in Need.