Arts Etc: The Critics: TELEVISION: What the Butler Saw - a Hapless Maid and a Feeble Master ; the Edwardian Country House Channel 4 the Truth about Gay Animals Channel 4 the Annual Barfta Awards Channel 4

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It was when Edgar the butler began to remind his two footmen to lavish careful and regular washing upon their genitals that I started to worry about the fate of the individuals trapped inside The Edwardian Country House. Mr Edgar, a schoolteacher selected by Channel 4 to run the below-stairs part of its latest pseudo- historical docusoap, took to his new role with terrifying zeal. He prohibited conversation at the servants' lunch table. When the new scullery maid committed the faux pas of knocking on the front door of the house, he sniffed, "Who of quality has come to the house?" without a flicker of self-consciousness. When the master of the house quietly accepted that the …