Julian Fellowes takes on high-society New York with The Gilded Age

Martin Scorsese once commented that his adaptation of The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton’s novel about New York’s elites in the late 19th century, was his “most violent” film — a reference to the ferocious tribalism and callous exclusivity of high society.

“Violent” certainly seems like the mot juste to describe the interactions in The Gilded Age — Julian Fellowes’ excellent transatlantic counterpart to his widely beloved Downton Abbey — which takes place on much the same streets as Wharton’s masterpiece, and in similarly resplendent mansions. These are the fortresses and front lines where a war between the established order and the emergent class of “vulgarian” arrivistes is fought.

This nine-part HBO series largely centres on a battle between factions camped in facing houses on East 61st Street. On one side are the estimable sisters Agnes van Rhijn (an outstanding Christine Baranski) and Ada Brook (Cynthia Nixon, already familiar with Manhattanite snobbery from her time on Sex and the City). Joining them is ingénue Marian (newcomer Louisa Jacobson), who arrives in New York from rural Pennsylvania after the death of her profligate father.

Unversed in the rules of the stringently codified world she has entered, Marian is soon taught by her domineering, Wodehousian aunts to avoid such unbecoming activities as getting a job, walking alone or, worst of all, fraternising with the parvenus across the road. “You belong to old New York,” warns Agnes in her formidable, patrician tone, oblivious to the paradox at the heart of that sentence.

“New” is treated as a dirty word around these parts, and the freshly constructed house opposite is looked upon by Agnes, Ada and their circle as if it was a dive overrun with parasites. The residents are in fact the well-heeled family of the upstart, uncompromising railway tycoon George Russell (Morgan Spector), who are shunned as representatives of an unwanted transition to modernity and a new class of iconoclastic, self-made pretenders.

No amount of money or imposing architecture can offset opinion. “I’m tired of letting those dull and stupid women dictate our lives,” laments matriarch Bertha Russell (the ever-watchable Carrie Coon), before hosting an ill-attended feast in their honour.

The Gilded Age isn’t as prone to societal navel gazing as some of its characters. While indulging in the particularities and tensions of the status quo, it also remembers to look beyond the corner of 61st and 5th to broader issues of race, female autonomy and relationships through the less staid younger generation, such as black writer Peggy Scott (Denée Benton).

The show is never insistent in its approach — as with Downton Abbey or Gosford Park, Fellowes doesn’t compromise the period setting by trying to force a contemporary tone or morality. Both fans and newcomers to his work will find much to relish here, not least his trademark drought-dry wit and his attention to place and character. But be wary, this programme also contains scenes of brutality in which words are weaponised, reputations are mutilated and characters are assassinated. It’s as violent as any other HBO drama. You just won’t see any blood.

★★★★☆

On Sky Atlantic from January 25 at 9pm and Now TV from 2am

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