Welcome to British Isles Friday! British Isles Friday is a weekly event for sharing all things British and Irish — reviews, photos, opinions, trip reports, guides, links, resources, personal stories, interviews, and research posts. Join us each Friday to link your British and Irish themed content and to see what others have to share. The link list is at the bottom of this post. Pour a cup of tea or lift a pint and join our link party!

Last week, I shared memories and photos from my trip to England, ten years ago in September. Tina read Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy in a day.

I was sadder than I expected to hear that Maggie Smith died. I think because I never thought of her as retired. Her final film, The Miracle Club, is still on my To Be Watched list from its release in 2023.

Of course, I mourned her death as Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, in Downton Abbey: A New Era. I enjoyed the countdown to the first Downton Abbey film so much that I made art featuring some of the Dowager Countess’s famous lines:

At the time, I most related to “Stop whining and find something to do.” Today, though, I’m considering more ways to achieve success through excess.

I’ve seen lots of people recommend various films with Maggie Smith in recent days, but I have two unusual ones.

First, this clip from The Carol Burnett Show brought me straight back to Saturday nights of my childhood. It’s very likely that I saw this performance when it aired originally, although I would have had little context for Maggie Smith when I was 13. This is so much fun for anyone who gets a kick out of British accents.

My second recommendation is a cozy visit with actors Maggie Smith, Eileen Atkins, Judi Dench, and Joan Plowright where they talk about their careers and aging, among other things: Tea With the Dames, initially released as Nothing Like a Dame in the UK. According to IMDB.com, this show is currently available to stream on Acorn TV and AMC+. It’s also widely available on DVD through public libraries.