Bannister

Bannister runs the Van Rhijn-Russell household with an unruffled, faintly amused competence, the butler who has seen every social tremor coming before his employers have. He minds propriety, manages younger staff, and treats the strict order of the house as a matter of quiet personal pride rather than mere duty.

Simon Jones plays him with a dry, watchful stillness that turns household ritual into comedy without ever tipping into caricature. The writing trusts him to carry the show's fascination with rules and hierarchy from below stairs, and Jones makes that vigilance feel like its own quiet form of authority.