British Comedy Guide
Keep It Up Downstairs. Daisy (Diana Dors). Copyright: Pyramid Films
Keep It Up Downstairs

Keep It Up Downstairs

  • 1976 film

Sex-filled Edwardian spoof in which the servants and masters at Cockshute Towers must unite to save the estate from bankruptcy. Stars Diana Dors, Jack Wild, William Rushton, Aimi MacDonald, Francoise Pascal and more.

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Keep It Up Downstairs. Image shows from L to R: Lady Cockshute (Sue Longhurst), The Earl, Lord Cockshute (Mark Singleton). Copyright: Pyramid Films

Key details

Genre
Film
Released
1976
Stars
Diana Dors, Jack Wild, William Rushton, Aimi MacDonald, Francoise Pascal, Neil Hallett, Mark Singleton, Simon Brent and more
Writer
Hazel Adair
Director
Robert Young
Producers
Hazel Adair and Mark Forstater
Company

The year is 1904, and the setting is Cockshute Towers, one of England's Stateliest Homes. Earl Cockshute is faced with a grave dilemma: the debts of the once-great family have been bought by Snotty Shuttleworth, a local villager who ventured to Australia and made his fortune in trade. Now he is back in England, and fancies himself as Lord if they cannot pay what they owe within a month.

Butler Hampton is perhaps more despairing of such a notion then his master, and the rest of the staff are equally aghast at the idea of life at Cockshute not being what it was - for all enjoy casual and fulfilling liasons of a hot and sweaty nature.

With no family heirlooms left to sell, Lord and Lady Cockshute turn to that old aristocratic trick of a convenient marriage. Young Lady Kitty recalls that a school-friend, Betsy Ann Dureneck, is an obscenely wealthy American oil heiress, and would be a perfect match for Master Peregrine. He, however, is far more interested in his basement scientific laboratory...

As the Durenecks visit for the weekend, things go quickly awry. Hampton recognises Betsy Ann's mother as a dancing girl he was once engaged to, and comes to a realisation about her parentage; Shuttleworth declares his love for Lady Kitty; and Betsy Ann seems as buttoned-up and uninterested in love or sex as Peregrine! Is a staged jewellry theft the only answer left to ensure the status quo at Cockshute Towers is maintained?

Additional details

Tagline
What the butler did... and did... and did...
UK certificate
X
Duration
93 minutes
UK release
Thursday 29th July 1976
Distributors

EMI

Also known as
  • Can You Keep It Up Downstairs?
Production
Location
Camera set-up
Single camera
Picture
Colour
Soundtrack
Music composed and arranged by Michael Nyman with lyrics by Clare Moray. Keith Nichols' Cinema Orchestra conducted by Cliff Adams, and sung by Neil Hallett.

Website links

Recording details

  • Knebworth House
  • Elstree Film Studios

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