Downton Abbey, American style

Gorgeous production design and costuming, power struggles, frowned-upon romances and a scene-stealing, acerbic matriarch – James Croot falls in love with The Gilded Age

As Downton Abbey fans eagerly await the arrival of the latest cinematic chapter of their favourite show in March, creator Julian Fellowes has delivered a nine-part series that may just become their new favourite.

The Gilded Age features all of the tropes you associate with the acclaimed screenwriter: power struggles, frowned upon romances, a range of characters who span the classes within a single household and a scene-stealing, acerbic matriarch.

Here, in early 1880s New York, that’s Agnes van Rhijn (a magnificent Christine Baranski), a woman whose ‘‘family have been in charge since the Mayflower landed’’.

Rarely deigning to leave her Upper East-Side, Central Park-adjacent house where she lives with her spinster sister Ada (Cynthia Nixon), this wonderful central character prefers to dole out advice, rather than money.

Proud of her incorrigibility, Agnes is unimpressed when it is finally revealed that the owners of the just completed ‘‘palace’’ across the street are from ‘‘new money’’. George Russell (Morgan Spector) is a businessman who is prepared to spend to ruin any rivals, while his wife Bertha (the fabulous Carrie Coon) is determined to break into ‘‘polite’’ New York society. ‘‘Whatever her faults, she has imagination, taste and nerve,’’

George tells his architect. ‘‘She’ll need all three in New York,’’ comes the pithy reply.

But while Agnes isn’t sure ‘‘if the noise of the builders, or running into her in the street, would be worse’’, she now has another, more pressing concern. Her feckless brother Henry has died, leaving daughter Marian (Meryl Streep’s daughter Louisa Jacobson) virtually penniless and in desperate need of assistance.

After a fraught journey from Pennsylvania – a trip only made possible thanks to the charity of aspiring African-American writer Peggy Scott (Denee Benton) – Marian arrives to face a barrage of guidance from Agnes. Informed that they will be purchasing her a whole new wardrobe, Marian is told she is ‘‘young, pretty, and we will show you to your advantage – we don’t want you to hang around the edges like an old crow’’.

Although Agnes already has her sights set on a suitable match, Marian has other ideas when she encounters the Russells’ son Larry (Harry Richardson).

Set in the same universe as Downton, though obviously set on the other side of the Atlantic and more than a generation before ‘‘the Crawley show’’, Fellowes has said he hopes to include a younger version of Elizabeth McGovern’s Cora Levinson (aka the Countess of Grantham). I actually hope has doesn’t try to shoehorn her in, for there are already enough players in this deliciously intriguing drama, which, even after the opening almost-feature length episode, is already ripe with subplots.

As one would hope, the production design is outstanding, the costuming exquisite (with Bertha’s seemingly endless selection of bustles and breathtaking gowns easily best in show) and the acting ensemble first-rate.

Coon, last seen in the very different Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and newcomer Jacobson are the twin drivers of the story, but, as with Maggie Smith’s Dowager, it’s Baranski (The Good Fight) who is the scene-stealer, thanks to a steady supply of pithy observations and cutting-remarks.

But really, there’s memorable work everywhere, from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s Simon Jones as the van Rhijns’ butler to Audra McDonald as Peggy’s estranged mother. The mix of Brits and Broadway talent is what grounds the show and sells Fellowes’ and co-writer Sonja Warfield’s (Will & Grace, She-Ra) writing, even in its more fanciful moments.

If it can keep up the quality, then this Gilded Age is likely to become a staple of the current golden age of television for many years to come.

The Gilded Age begins streaming on Neon and SkyGo on Tuesday. New episodes will also debut each Sunday on SoHo from January 30.