Downton Abbey Movie - Release date 13 September, 2019

Radio Times

Production has wrapped on the film, which is set to star Downton favourites Maggie Smith, Michelle Dockery and Hugh Bonneville – and features a visit from the King and Queen.

Starring: Maggie Smith, Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery, Imelda Staunton

MORE HERE

Charles and Camilla pose with Oscar winners including Judi Dench and Colin Firth as they host a star-studded reception in honour of British filmmaking

DAILY MAIL
By PHOEBE JACKSON-EDWARDS FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 16:54 EST, 4 May 2016 | UPDATED: 18:13 EST, 4 May 2016

Prince Charles and Camilla held a recption celebrating British filmmaking, from second left, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Prince of Wales, The Duchess of Cornwall, with Colin Firth and Michael Caine, centre



Dame Judi Dench and Colin Firth, who earned their Oscars playing members of the monarchy, are being celebrated at a royal reception for British Academy Awards winners.



The Prince of Wales, 67, and Duchess of Cornwall, 68, hosted the event at St James's Palace tonight to celebrate British filmmaking, which also saw Sir Michael Caine, Emma Thompson and singer Sam Smith among the Oscar-winning guests from both in front of and behind the camera.

Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs, Academy CEO Dawn Hudson and members of the Academy's Board of Governors were also in attendance.




Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3573897/Charles-Camilla-pose-Oscar-winners-including-Judi-Dench-Colin-Firth-host-star-studded-reception-honour-British-filmmaking.html#ixzz47jtJPMmF
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Five ways Downton Abbey changed TV

NEWS.COM.AU
Clare Rigden
News Corp Australia Network

AS Downton Abbey closes its doors for the final time, we take a look at how this British costume drama achieved global acclaim.

1. It’s made stuffy costume drama cool again

Downton Abbey brought a format often only seen on networks like the BBC in Britain, and ABC in Australia, and made it accessible to everyone.

“I think one of the things that Downton has done, is explode the myth that period drama has to be highbrow or in the literary genre,” says Executive Producer, Liz Trubridge.

Even though the storylines are set in a bygone age, viewers can relate to what characters are going through. And having gorgeous sets and costumes makes it all the more fun.

“I don’t think it’s overstating it to say that Downton has taken a much-loved British genre — the period countryhouse drama — and given it a complete overhaul for the 21st century, borrowing from the compelling storylines of soap opera to the quality writing and production values of contemporary U.S. television shows,” says Executive Producer, Gareth Neame.

Shows like Mr Selfridge and Ripper Street — both successful series that have premiered in the past few years — owe much to their predecessor.


2. It’s showed the Yanks how it’s done

Downton is a British format that found an audience in the States — not the other way round. In the process it was a game-changer for US networks and producers, who realised there was an audience for this type of drama.

Fellowes admits the show’s success took him by surprise.

“That was a rather extraordinary moment: to realise you’d written a show that was reaching parts [of popular culture] that other shows don’t reach,” he says.

The series finale was watched by 9.9 million viewers in the US, and was nominated for an Emmy award every year it aired.

3. It’s epic in scale

Everything about Downton is on a grand scale, from the setting — beautiful Highclere Castle, where it’s filmed — to the costumes, set dressing, and even the storylines.

Downton’s six series span one of the most tumultuous decades in modern history. Everything from the introduction of electricity and the automobile, to the First World War and the Spanish flu is covered — and that’s just for starters.

Producers never shied away from tackling political and social issues too, talking about everything from the rise of fascism in the 1920s, to the establishment of the women’s suffragette movement.


READ MORE HERE: http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/5-ways-downtown-abbey-changed-tv/news-story/84b4abc40d07df4ec3b87a2a840a1acc

Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes hints cast are holding up film being made

MIRROR
BY NICOLA AGIUS
14 April, 2016



Downton Abbey creator Jullian Fellowes has seriously hinted that the cast are the reason a film is not yet in production.

Speaking on Loose Women today, the award-winning writer admitted he would love to turn his small screen masterpiece into a blockbuster, but the decision is not in his hands.

Are the likes of Hugh Bonneville, Dame Maggie Smith, Michelle Dockery and Elizabeth McGovern to blame?

"Let's just say it's not me slowing things up," he teased. "The difficulty is rounding up the actors. One is in America making a new series, another is in a play.

READ MORE HERE: http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/downton-abbey-creator-julian-fellowes-7755060

Dowager Countess to outlive Downton Abbey... even though character played by Dame Maggie Smith must be 110 by now

DAILY MAIL
By CHRIS HASTINGS FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
PUBLISHED: 18:59 EST, 2 May 2015 | UPDATED: 09:05 EST, 3 May 2015

She is as much a part of Downton Abbey as its Bath Stone walls – and just as imposing. So it is only right that the redoubtable Dowager Countess of Grantham will remain a constant of the ITV show right until the very end.

By some reckoning the formidable Crawley family matriarch, played by Dame Maggie Smith, would be 110 at the time the final series is set. But it seems that even the Grim Reaper is so intimidated by the prospect of her withering putdowns that the character will not be killed off.

Lord Fellowes, the Oscar winning creator of the show confirmed the news, saying: ‘Maggie will never die!’

The disclosure that Violet will survive to the end of the final episode – to air on Christmas Day – will be welcomed by the show’s 120 million fans worldwide.

The Dowager Countess is by far the most popular character and has remained stubbornly alive even though pundits have been predicting her demise ever since the show launched in 2010.

And it has been suggested that the Dowager Countess’s death would be the obvious way of bringing the curtain down on the global franchise.

It would certainly be her time. Downton Abbey’s first series was set in 1912, when the character was already in her dotage. The forthcoming sixth series is set more than a decade later.

And he revealed: ‘All the cast we said goodbye to in series five are all popping up in the final series.
‘It will end on Christmas Day. It will be a two-hour special on Christmas night. I am pleased with the way the whole series is coming on actually.’

He declined to be drawn on specifics about the plots, although fans are hoping that butler Carson and housekeeper Mrs Hughes will finally tie the knot following his proposal in last year’s Christmas Day episode.

Fellowes said he wouldn’t write his new American television series The Gilded Age, set among the high- society families of New York in the late 19th Century, until he had finally completed work on the last scripts for Downton.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3065753/Dowager-Countess-outlive-Downton-Abbey-character-played-Dame-Maggie-Smith-110-now.html#ixzz3Z6RTuJa2 
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Downton Abbey to end after six series

BBC NEWS
March 26, 2015



The next season of ITV's period drama Downton Abbey will be its last, its makers have announced.
"Inevitably there comes a time when all shows should end and Downton is no exception," said the programme's executive producer Gareth Neame.

Created by Julian Fellowes, the show follows an aristocratic family's fortunes from 1912 to the mid-1920s.

Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern have played the Earl and Countess of Grantham since the show began in 2010.

The drama has won a string of awards since its inception, including two Baftas, three Golden Globes and 11 Primetime Emmys.

Its success both at home and abroad was recently demonstrated when the Duchess of Cambridge went to see it being filmed at Ealing Studios in west London

"The Downton journey has been amazing for everyone aboard," said Lord Fellowes, whose next project will be The Gilded Age, a period drama set in New York.

"People ask if we knew what was going to happen when we started to make the first series and the answer is that, of course we had no idea.

"Exactly why the series had such an impact and reached so many people around the world, all nationalities, all ages, all types, I cannot begin to explain."

"But I do know how grateful we are to have been allowed this unique experience."


READ MORE HERE: http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-32074921

Anthony Hopkins & Ian McKellen Talk Tyrannical Directors, State Of TV & Finally Working Together On ‘The Dresser’

DEADLINE HOLLYWOOD
by Nancy Tartaglione
March 19, 2015 5:00pm



On the Ealing Studios lot, which once played host to Alec Guinness and the Ealing Comedies — and is now the residence of Downton Abbey — Anthony Hopkins and Ian McKellen have been shooting BBC/Starz’s upcoming The Dresser. This is the adaptation of Ronald Harwood’s classic play that’s produced by Colin Callender’s Playground Entertainment. It’s the first time in many years that a play has been adapted in such a way for television. And it joins the two veteran stars together for the first time. It will air on BBC Two this year and on Starz in 2016.

Callender tells me it is likely the first project of a six-part series of single dramas that Playground is developing for television that he will produce with Sonia Friedman. I was on The Dresser set last week, speaking with the principals on such diverse topics as Hopkins’ distaste for theater acting thanks to “tyrannical directors” and McKellen’s belief that some television is currently “in the doldrums.”

In The Dresser, Hopkins plays an ailing actor known as Sir, and McKellen is his devoted backstage hand and dresser, Norman. It takes place on a fateful night in a small regional theater during World War II as a troupe of touring actors stage a production of Shakespeare’s King Lear. As the backstage situation reaches a crisis, it parallels the onstage struggle of Lear and his Fool. The play was inspired by Harwood’s experiences as a dresser for the distinguished British actor-manager Sir Donald Wolfit. Richard Eyre is directing. Emily Watson, Happy Valley‘s Sarah Lancashire, Everest’s Vanessa Kirby and Edward Fox, who also had a role in Peter Yates’ Oscar-nominated 1983 film version, are part of the supporting cast.

The small set of Sir’s dressing room and other parts of the backstage are closed off with a video village a few feet away. There are about 30 people milling about. Watson tells me, “There is so much history here, somewhere if you dig deep enough, the walls have got bales of hay in them.”

The craft services table is emblematic of British shoots. There are some sandwiches, mounds of teabags and three jars of Marmite. McKellen, I’m told, drinks Marmite with hot water in the mornings.



When I arrive, he, Hopkins, and Watson are shooting a scene where Norman, growing increasingly drunk over the course of the night, is regaling Sir on the reactions out front. The three actors clearly are reverent of the material, but there’s friendly banter in between takes when Hopkins says he had the recurring “actors’ dream” the night before of being onstage and forgetting one’s lines. He later tells me: “The dream is very real. I suppose what it is is that the subconscious mind regurgitates the mirror image. I’m meticulous about learning lines — I always have a dread about not knowing them, so I do know them.”

While learning his lines in California beginning last fall, Hopkins said he was “counting the days” until production started. “I had my face buried in the book all the time, much to the alarm of my wife (who said), ‘You’ve got to get out.’ But I loved it.”

Now, he says, “To do such a well-structured play and something I know — the insecurities the fears jealousy, paranoia, all of that. I had a dresser at the National Theatre who was one of the loneliest men I’ve ever met. He lived in East London and had nothing. Poor old guy. I remember everything. He’s dead and gone now, but I remember the loneliness of that guy. This is Norman.”

Hopkins didn’t last long on the boards when he was younger, saying he “skedaddled from the theater years ago.” What made him leave? “I couldn’t fit in, I just feel alien in companies. … I get bored after the second night. I’d think ‘Oh, God.’ So I escaped and went back to California.” The Dresser is particularly poignant because it brings back the “bleakness of life in those touring companies.” He toured with the National Theatre for four months in 1957, and it was a killer. “Some people thrive on (tours), but I couldn’t. You get the thing where you have the tyrannical directors screaming and shouting, and costume calls at 1 AM and being ridiculed. And, I remember thinking, ‘Oh, I’m getting out of this; I’d rather do something else’.”

I asked him if he had come across tyrannical directors in film. “I don’t put up with them,” Hopkins said. “They keep out of my way. They don’t mess with me.” The Dresser, he said, is “a return, in a way, to a kind of pain-free visit to the theater.” And working with McKellen has been “extraordinary. … He’s a great actor to be with. He’s a great friend and very, very funny. We laugh all the time.”

The pair were both in Laurence Olivier’s company at the National Theatre many years ago, and each reminisces about the actors of the day — “All the old guys like Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud because we knew all of them, that’s a world I remember,” says Hopkins.

McKellen tells me, “We’ve worked out that I was (at the National) for nine months and I think about the day I left, he joined.” McKellen still regularly does plays, having stuck it out with such artists as Derek Jacobi, Michael Gambon, Michael York, Maggie Smith and Joan Plowright, he reels off to me in his dressing room, which is peppered with The Dresser paraphernalia.

Working now with Hopkins, McKellen says: “If you had to pick one of the top actors of our time, you know Anthony Hopkins would have to be up there in any country. So to be close to him while he’s working has been a thrill.”

Watson echoes that there are days “when I really pinch myself; I can’t believe I’m here doing this with these guys.” Watson’s character, Her Ladyship, is Sir’s long-suffering wife and leading lady.


READ MORE HERE: http://deadline.com/2015/03/anthony-hopkins-ian-mckellen-the-dresser-set-1201395026/

Downton Factor returns to town for a sixth series

WHITNEY GAZETTE
March 4, 2015

Downton Abbey at Cogges Manor Farm, including Hugh Bonneville as Lord Grantham

STARS from the hit television period drama Downton Abbey were spotted filming at Cogges Manor Farm, near Witney, on Monday.

Hugh Bonneville, who plays Lord Grantham, and Laura Carmichael, who plays lady Edith Crawley, were seen on set. It is understood they were filming episodes in the hit show’s sixth series set to air later this year on ITV.

Cogges has often been used for scenes at the fictional Yew Tree Farm, home to the Drewe family, who bring up Lady Edith’s child. It is one of a series of locations used across West Oxfordshire. Others include Bampton, which doubles as the fictional Downton village.

Filming has become known as ‘the Downton factor’, providing a valuable boost to the district’s tourist industry.



In November last year West Oxfordshire Council, in partnership with Visit Britain, met about 90 Chinese tour operators and media representatives in Guangzhou and Hong Kong.

Council tourism services manager Hayley Beer said she expected two more international tour operators to sign contracts with the council, to add to its deal with International Friends, which began conducting Downton tours to the Cotswolds in April 2014.


READ MORE HERE: http://www.witneygazette.co.uk/news/wgheadlines/11830612.Downton_Factor_returns_to_town_for_a_sixth_series/?ref=fbshr

Julian Fellowes says he has no say in how show HE created will end... but admits it can't go on forever

DAILY MAIL
By JOANNA CRAWLEY FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 12:03 EST, 4 March 2015 | UPDATED: 16:03 EST, 4 March 2015



He's the creator of the show, so if anyone knows when Downton Abbey will end it's Julian Fellowes.

But the 65-year-old screenwriter has insisted that how and when the period drama will finish isn't ultimately down to him.

Explaining that he doesn't 'own' Downton, Julian has told The New York Times that any decisions regarding the finale of the hit series will be made by the show's owners, NBC Universal.

Amid mounting rumours that the ITV production will end after the sixth series, which will air in the UK later this year, Julian told the newspaper: 'It's not really my decision. I don't own Downton Abbey now.

'NBC Universal [which owns Carnival Films] owns Downton Abbey. So I could walk away. But I wouldn't walk away. It's too much my baby.'

The writer added that he 'can't immediately' say exactly when the show will end, but went on to admit that he wouldn't want to continue the storylines of the Crawley family past World War Two.

'Maybe people would say, "Oh my God, that's baby George, grown up!" But I don't think it would be continuous, with Michelle Dockery with her hair covered with talcum powder.'

Rumours that Downton will come to an end this year first started circulating In January, but ITV were quick to shoot down the reports as 'speculative'.

Julian though is moving to New York to work on a new period drama, meaning the rumours of his British-set period drama's imminent end are looking more and more likely.

The show's star Dame Maggie Smith, who plays Violet Crawley, also appeared to signal the end was nigh as she said she was ready to leave the show last week.

The 80-year-old has since clarified her remarks with a representative telling The Wrap: 'Maggie has always been on the record as saying she'll be with the show for as long as the show runs.'



This comes after Smith, said that she she can't see how programme can continue after the upcoming sixth season.

'They say this is the last one, and I can't see how it could go on,' the legendary actress told the Sunday Times.

Continuing she quipped: 'I mean, I certainly can't keep going. To my knowledge, I must be 110 by now. We're into the late 1920s.'


READ MORE HERE: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2979509/Julian-Fellowes-says-no-say-created-end-admits-t-forever.html

(SPOILER ALERT) ‘Downton Abbey’ Recap: In the Finale, Mary Meets Mr. Handsome, With a Who Could-Care-Less Attitude (SPOILER ALERT)

NEW YORK TIMES
By LOUIS BAYARD  MARCH 1, 2015 10:37 PM


Michelle Dockery as Lady Mary with  one of the twin Barkers portraying Lady Mary's son, Master George Crawley.Credit Nick Briggs/Carnival Films for Masterpiece

Season 5, Episode 9

Oh, Abbots. It can’t be over, can it? Another season, gone as quickly as a grouse flying over Brancaster Castle.

So let us keep sorrow at bay by reminding ourselves: We’ve finally pulled abreast. Oh, sure, those viewers in Britain got their usual three-month head start on us (just as the Brits used to get first crack at the latest Dickens installment). Viewers in the United States who were too impatient to wait for the weekly drip of revelation snapped up their DVDs and sometimes blurted out key plot developments over a few too many Manhattans. They had us in their spoiler-alert grip, Abbots, but no longer. Democracy reigns.

So now that we’re all on the same plane of knowledge, what can we say for sure about this fast-receding season? (For Baron Fellowes’ thoughts, read this.)

Longstanding relationships (the Bateses, Robert and Cora) were tested and left standing. Longstanding plot lines were either resolved (Edith’s daughter) or abruptly discarded (Mary Crowley’s sort-of-not-really love triangle). Characters like Violet, the dowager countess, were enlarged with new layers and backstories; others showed clear signs of outliving their narrative usefulness. From all indications, we have seen the last of:



1) Mary’s dim suitor Tony Gillingham (Tom Cullen), who gets a fine consolation prize in Mabel Lane Fox (Catherine Steadman).

2) Boston-bound Tom Branson (Allen Leech), who has taken longer to quit the scene than Cher.

3) Rose (Lily James) and Atticus (Matt Barber), who are heading off to New York. (Synchronously, Ms. James has veered off toward “Cinderella,” a part she seems genetically modified for.)

One way or another, the Downton family is fragmenting. Just like the Downton estate (headed for subdivision) and the Downton ethos, a victim to those winds of sociopolitical change that Carson (Jim Carter) keeps mumbling on about. As servants like Daisy (Sophie McShera) begin to imagine better lives, as Socialists like Sarah Bunting make scenes in fine dining rooms, as Edwardian ideals give way to harsh postwar realities (excellent historical timeline here), look for the Crawleys and their retinues to feel and fight their own anachronism.

We know they’ll lose, but what’s a historical drama without gallant fools engaged in rear-guard actions? So carry on, you lovely, maddening elitists, along with your lovely, maddening retinues. We’ll be griping and grumbling, and we’ll be watching.

In the meantime, may I suggest just one incremental reform? On the evidence of Episode 9, you need better legal counsel.

I’m sure the Earl of Grantham’s lawyer, George Murray (Jonathan Coy), has a few gray cells poking around in there, but several years after botching the defense of Bates (Brendan Coyle), he seems bound and determined to do the same with Mrs. Bates (Joanne Froggatt), even going so far as to declare the police case against her airtight when — as we all know, Abbots — it has more holes than, well, a grouse flying over Brancaster Castle.

Turns out that, when Anna was a teenager, she cut her stepfather-molester with a knife, and while she was never charged, that mysteriously reconstructed incident has created some kind of — oh, I don’t know, “pattern” of violence that will sweep Anna straight to the gallows, and in the name of Perry Mason, can’t some fine lawyerly mind sweep this whole business to sea? Instead, it falls to Bates (Mr. Coyle) to confess to Mr. Green’s murder and then vamoose to Ireland.

Now if Sarah Bunting were still around, I would point out to her that, even without benefit of a welfare state, no one enjoys better job security than the Bateses. It doesn’t matter how much leave they take or how many heinous crimes they’re accused of, their jobs are always kept open, their home fires are kept burning, and free (if incompetent) legal care abounds. Sweden could do no better.

At any rate, Anna is sprung on bail, and Murray declares, “We’re going forward and not backward,” but to me, it feels like we’re on the same leaking story pontoon, which only stays afloat because Baron Fellowes’ legs are kicking as madly as they can. By episode’s end, even he must be a little fatigued because a York publican turns up to give Bates an alibi, and the witness who ID’d Anna sprouts “doubts,” and lo and behold, it’s Christmas, and who should pop out of the mistletoe, as it were, but Bates?

Love emerges when you least expect it, Abbots. Sometimes all it takes (and this will give aid and comfort to Freudians everywhere) is for a lot of men to pull out their big guns. The Sinderbys have rented Brancaster for a weeklong shooting party, and no one is immune. Even Edith (Laura Carmichael) loses a bit of her Mildred Pierce-y daughter fixation and dances a few rounds with agreeable castle agent Bertie Pelham (Harry Hadden-Paton). We wish them both well. (And by the way, Edith needs to let that hair flow. With her locks down to her shoulders, she goes from librarian to licentious.)

But no one is more moved by the sight of men and their gauges than Lady Mary Crawley (Michelle Dockery), who finds herself unaccountably aroused by the marksmanship of a handsome stranger named Henry Talbot. Now I don’t mean to crow, but as soon as I heard Matthew Goode was signed up for the final episode, I immediately discerned that his plot function would be roughly the same as it was in “The Good Wife”: to melt the froideur of a stern, ashen, erotically complicated brunette. Sure enough, he shows up on the Northumberland moors without even an establishing close-up but with enough swagger to remind us that Mary needs a chap who looks as good as Tony G but treats her as roughly as Inspector Vyner. “Heavens,” exclaims Mary, watching Talbot climb into his car. “What a snappy chariot.” Now I would’ve thought she’d be a little skittish of automobiles, given how her late husband met his end, but she seems to be all over Henry T and his Bentley.

Amazing to think, Abbots, that after two seasons of arid flirtation and Liverpool lovefests, Our Miss Flint has found someone to spark off. And the secret to his allure? He doesn’t give a damn if she likes him or not. Look for Talbot to stick around.

READ THE ENTIRE RECAP HERE: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/downton-abbey-recap-in-the-finale-mary-meets-mr-handsome-who-could-care-less/?_r=0

Downton Abbey Gets a Fresh Influx of Villainery (spoilers & review)

THE ATLANTIC
SOPHIE GILBERT, KATIE KILKENNY, AND JOE REIDFEB 22 2015, 10:00 PM ET

A sociopath, a drunk, and a tramp nearly ruined Rose's London wedding, even as the show's resident scoundrel showed his softer side.



Every week for the fifth season of PBS's period drama Downton Abbey, Sophie Gilbert, Katie Kilkenny, and Joe Reid will discuss the intrigues, upstairs and downstairs, of public television's favorite Yorkshire manor.

Gilbert: A slow clap for Shrimpy, please. And, though it burns me to say it, for Lord Grantham, because even a stopped clock is right twice a day, as the Dowager Countess might say. The penultimate episode of Downton’s fifth season saw the (second) most pompous man in Yorkshire finally peel off some of his prickly aristocratic armor and do a very kind deed for Mrs. Patmore, honoring the cook’s nephew with a specially designed memorial stone in the village. He also finally twigged that Marigold bears an uncanny resemblance to someone—not Edith, his own child, who, as we know will be ignored until the world stops turning, but Michael Gregson. All it took was Cora to gently confirm his suspicions, and suddenly the Crawleys have a new grandchild to fuss over, or a replacement for Sybbie, anyway, since Tom seems hell bent on moving to Boston. I hope he has snow shoes.



There was an awful lot to unpack in this episode, which once again blended moments of comedy and tragedy with the kind of surging string crescendos normally reserved for Nicholas Sparks movies. Those who predicted Lord Sinderby would be enshrined as the season’s villain before the wedding was out were disappointed—the true snake in the Aldridge grass turned out to be Susan, Rose’s mother, who paid a “tart” (as Mary put it) to pose as a prostitute in Atticus’s hotel room, allowing a photographer to capture the moment and send the (misleading) evidence to Rose. Downton loves nothing more than a person doing malevolent deeds for no good reason, from Thomas (more on him later) to O’Brien to the first Mrs. Bates to Edna the saucy housemaid. Is England really so full of sociopaths? I understand that the show needs drama, but it does get exhausting watching villains try to ruin everything all the time, and there’ve been Disney baddies who’ve had more psychological clarity and motivation than the poisonous Susan.

Since it was her wedding day, and all went well despite her mother’s worst intent, let’s take a moment to appreciate Lady Rose. Once a flighty party girl sent to Downton to straighten up, she seems to have evolved into a kind, sweet, and perceptive person, caring for displaced Russian aristocrats and managing to wrap her head around even Lord Sinderby. While it’s easy to dislike Atticus’ father for his cold manner, hearing his speech about wanting to preserve the legacy of his ancestors gave him a lot more heft as a character than Susan, who only cares about saving face. But can she have any friends left to save face for? It’s a mystery.

While Shrimpy was upbraiding his soon-to-be-ex-wife, Lord Grantham (suitably chastened by the death of his dog) was remembering that commoners also have feelings, and Rose was getting married, the Dowager Countess’s maid was taking Andy the temporary footman to gambling clubs and drinking for free thanks to him losing all his cash. I have two problems with this. The first is that Violet is far too exacting a person to stand for a person like Denker being her lady’s maid. The second is that no one gets that tiddly (it is a long way to Tipperary) and doesn’t have even a shade of a hangover the next day. Nevertheless, it took a villain to understand a villain, and Thomas, astute as he is, was able to figure out Denker’s con and win back Andy’s money, leaving Denker with a nasty bar bill to settle. Spratt would be so pleased if he wasn't stuck in Yorkshire pondering his grievances.

There’s so much we haven’t covered. Katie and Joe, what did you think of Daisy’s decision (and then reversal) to move to London and live a life of culture? How long until Mr Molesley puts a ring on it? (“It” being Miss Baxter, obviously.) Will Tom actually leave for Boston or is this just one of those insufferable problems that gets mentioned over and over again before reaching a predictably tidy conclusion? (Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the war memorial.) Why does “The Velvet Violin” sound so offensive to my ears? And, most importantly, did Lady Sinderby have the best comeback of the season?



READ MORE HERE: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/02/downton-abbey-season-5-episode-8/385723/

‘Downton Abbey’ recap - **** makes her escape!!! (SPOILERS)

WASHINGTON POST
By Joe Heim February 8 at 10:00 PM

 

After a dully-dull Downton last week, the show returned Sunday night with its best episode in ages, filled with intrigue, nasty sniping and a number of critical plot revelations.

Where to begin? Well, Mr. Bates almost certainly didn’t kill Mr. Green. Edith is officially a pre-marital widow. Lord and Lady Grantham are back to sharing the same bed. Horse races don’t always end with the death of a rider even when you think they will. And Lady Mary has all the sympathy of a mongoose. Not bad for a 50-minute episode.

(Ooops, wrong Mr. Bates)

The show opened with a telegram arriving for Lady Edith. Stop. Telegrams were the text messages of their day. Stop. This one informs her that the business partner of her lover, the missing Mr. Gregson, is coming to Downton with news. Stop.

Everyone at the Abbey assumes, correctly it turns out, that the news is bad. Mr. Gregson, the father of Edith’s child, has been offed by Adolf’s gang of Brownshirt thugs in Germany. The news confirms Edith’s fears and she is understandably upset. Her sister Mary? Not so much. “Well of course it’s terrible,” she says to Anna. “But what did she think he was doing? Living in a tree?”

Oh Mary, you are a dear.

I’m afraid that’s just the beginning of her awfulness this week. In Edith’s moment of despair (admittedly, she has a lot of those), Merciless Mary sharpens her heels for an extra kick or two. More about that in a bit.

The Dowager Countess hears from beanless Shrimpy that he may be close to finding Prince Kuragin’s wife alive in Hong Kong. The DC, who had a fling with the noble Russian refugee many moons ago, decides she should travel to his rundown tenement in York to tell him the news about his wife. Kuragin is not exactly elated to hear it. I think he would have been happier if his wife met the same fate as poor Mr. Gregson.

The randy Russian is much more interested in rekindling the magic with the Dowager Countess. He tries to work his charm. “I wanted you from the moment I first saw you. More than mortal man ever wanted woman,” he tells her. It’s a good line, Kuragin, but the DC isn’t that easy.



Lord Grantham is still feeling quite frosty toward his wife. He found another man in their bedroom, after all. Even though she claims nothing happened, it’s not the kind of thing you just casually dismiss. Cora wants to patch things up, but she’ll need quite a bit of super glue to put this all back together. She visits him in his dressing room to ask him to return to their bedroom. Lord G refuses, but Cora is having none of it.

“If you can honestly say that you have never let a flirtation get out of hand since we were married, if you have never given a woman the wrong impression, then by all means, stay away,” she tells him.

“Otherwise I expect you back in my room tonight.” Tell him, Cora! Grantham huffs and puffs and then pulls himself out of the tiny, tiny bed, tucks his tail between his legs and heads off to join her.

Speaking of sad puppies, I’m worried about Isis. I don’t know what’s going to happen to her, but I think we’re in for an Old Yeller moment later this year. Get your hankies ready.

Big news this week: Mary is off to York for haircut. It’s a mod bob! Now she’ll no longer have to go upstairs to take off her hat.

The haircut sets the scene for another splendid showdown in the Downton drawing room (which I believe was designed to look like the office of Congressman Aaron Schock). No, Bunting is not involved. But it turns out the regular crew is perfectly capable of creating their own drama. Edith is still mourning Gregson, but Mary seems to think this is a swell time to show off her new do. This causes a stir. Grandma gets in a dry dig. “Ah, it is you,” she says. “I thought it was a man wearing your clothes.”

Edith can’t comprehend how inconsiderate Mary is being. “I’m amazed that even you would choose the day after I learned the man I loved is dead to try out a new fashion,” she says. “And if that weren’t enough, you’ve planned a jolly picnic for Saturday. Am I really expected to join in?”

“Hopefully not, as you usually spoil everything,” Mary replies icily. Mary will have her own wing in hell.




(Again, these very rude pictures were provided by Karen V. Wasylowski, not the distinguished Washington Post)

READ THE REST HERE: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2015/02/08/downton-abbey-recap-edith-makes-her-move-and-mary-is-so-so-cold/

‘Downton Abbey’ recap: A rare instance of fisticuffs

WASHINGTON POST
By Joe Heim February 1 at 10:00 PM



Approximately 16 people chose to watch “Downton Abbey” instead of the Super Bowl on Sunday night. If you’re reading this, you are probably one of them. I’m kidding of course. The audience for “Downton Abbey” was likely in the hundreds.

If ever there was a good week to miss the show (and I’m not saying there is) this might have been it. Maybe the writers realized they would be up against the Super Bowl. That would explain the feel this one had, of an episode that had been thrown together at the last minute. The official name for this kind of thing is “filler.”

But not all was lost. There was a punch-up this week and we so rarely see anyone on “Downton” losing control of his or her emotions (besides Edith of course) that the show was worth watching for the fray alone.

The episode began with the arrival of Aunt Rosamund, here to rescue the aforementioned poor Lady Edith from her misery. This, like almost everything involving Edith, doesn’t go well. More on that in a bit.

Another party is being planned at Downton and that’s a hint that the writers were getting a bit lazy. Can they think of no events other than parties to advance a plot? This time the bash is a cocktail party for Lord Grantham’s lieutenants (pronounced ‘lefttenants’ because the British hate to pronounce a word the way it’s spelled). The idea of having a cocktail party instead of a proper dinner is positively revolutionary, but perhaps Lord Grantham has endorsed the idea because he can’t bear the thought of the obstreperous Miss Bunting obstrepering yet another dinner.

In other inexplicable Downton news, Mrs. Crawley hasn’t yet decided how to answer Lord Merton’s lovely proposal. Seriously, Mrs. C, if you’re waiting for a better pitch than that, it’s going to be a long haul. The Dowager Countess, still worried about Mrs. Crawley gaining any social standing, decides to conspire with Dr. Clarkson to show Mrs. C just how shallow and ill-suited a partner Lord Merton would be for her. To both their credit, the DC and Clarkson come to realize that Merton actually is the perfect match. Now we just have to wait and see if Mrs. Crawley reaches the same conclusion.

(from Arrested Downton)

Downstairs, Mrs. Patmore has come into a little bit of money and wants to know how to invest it. So she goes to Carson for advice. He’s a man and men understand investments. Just ask Bernie Madoff. She ends up disregarding his advice (smart Cookie!) but tries to make him think she actually took it. Men have feelings, after all. Maybe this will turn into a crucial plot thread, but it sure felt like more filler.

Okay, back to Edith. Lady Rosamund and dear Grandmama are trying to convince her to stop stalking Marigold and send the baby to a new family in order to protect her (and the family’s) reputation. I suppose it’s easy, given the modern view of these things, to want to shake Edith by the shoulders and tell her to tell everyone that she’s the mother and wants to raise the baby, married or not. But that is not how things were done. Having a high-society baby out of wedlock was almost always a non-starter.

(Random Aside no. 1: Wedlock is such a strange word. It sounds more like a prison sentence than eternal bliss.)

Lord Grantham and Tom are having their eleventeenth discussion about Miss Bunting. She might be the worst dinner guest ever, but Tom’s wishy-washy-ness is getting on my nerves as well. Grantham tries to convince Tom that his time at Downton has been a great opportunity for him and that he shouldn’t ignore that. He should ignore Bunting instead.

You know who Tom shouldn’t ignore? Mary. Their tete-a-tete’s this year make me wonder if they won’t try to be more than just in-laws to one another. At the very least, Mary may want to take a test drive.

In this week’s police news, Mr. Carson has received a note that the local constabulary will be stopping by again. These drop-ins are becoming a little ridiculous. Do the police only ask one question each time they visit the Abbey? Haven’t they ever watched “Law & Order”? This is not how you conduct a police investigation.

This time the local policeman is accompanied by an inspector from Scotland Yard and they are here to talk to Anna and Lady Mary. I actually think Anna is the one who killed Green. But my guess is we will need about 25 more police visits until that will be revealed.

Lady Edith takes Aunt Rosamund to see her darling Marigold at the Drews’. It’s a bit like a visit to a petting zoo. Wearing their Downton-y finest, Edith and Rosamund look like they’re planning to award a blue ribbon to the local pig farmer’s wife for how well she has raised this little girl. Mrs. Drew would like to clunk Edith over the head. How great would it be if Mrs. Drew moved into the Abbey and Edith moved into the tenant farmer’s home to take care of her brood? I think there was a reality show like that a few years ago.

This week our favorite art historian returned to Downton, purportedly to take a picture of the famous painting. But everyone knows that’s a ruse. He has his eyes on Downton’s prized possession, Lady Grantham.

Bricker arrives and Lord Grantham, who for some reason is dressed like a greeter at FAO Schwarz, gives him a brusque hello before heading off. Bricker is pleased to see the back of Grantham and more pleased to see the front of Lady Cora. Let the flirting commence!

READ MORE OF THE RECAP HERE: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2015/02/01/downton-abbey-recap-a-rare-instance-of-fisticuffs/

(P.S. Don't blame the Washington Post for the pictures here - I included them.  K. Wasylowski)

‘Downton Abbey' To End This Year After Six Series As Cast Go Job-Hunting In The US

HUFF POST ENTERTAINMENT UK
The Huffington Post UK |  BY Matt Bagwell
Posted: 29/01/2015 07:20 GMT Updated: 29/01/2015 07:59 GMT



The next series of ‘Downton Abbey’ will be the last, according to reports.

The ITV period drama, which stars Hugh Bonneville and Dame Maggie Smith, will end after the sixth series airs later this year.

The final installment is set to be filmed over the spring and summer and will hit our screens in September.

Writer Julian Fellowes is set to begin working on a brand new series, ‘The Gilded Age’, about 19th century New York, whilst agents for the cast are already in talks to find them new roles.

A source told The Mirror: “It’s an open secret that Downton is ending this year.

"Some of the actors are keen to let it be known they will be available for work after the summer. Some are interested in the US, where Downton is as popular as it is in the UK.

“Joanne Froggatt, Laura Carmichael and Allen Leech were in Los Angeles for the [SAG] awards last week and there were several meetings about both TV and film roles.”

Michelle Dockery, who plays Lady Mary, has spoken in the past about working in America.

She said: “It feels as though there are more opportunities for us over there. “I love spending time there.”


READ MORE HERE: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/01/29/downton-abbey-ending_n_6568420.html

As 'Downton Abbey' heads into season five, it maintains its magic touch

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
BY DAVID HINCKLEY
Sunday, January 4, 2015, 2:00 AM


NICK BRIGGS

Laura Carmichael as Lady Edith Crawley on “Downton Abbey”; the plotline for Season 5 will spend a fair amount of time with Lady Edith.

The magic touch that “Downton Abbey” has wielded from its opening scene is the kind of gift that, like a lavish British country estate, you have to be born with.

From the moment the Titanic went down right up to the show’s fifth season, which launches on PBS at 9 p.m. Sunday, that touch has not diminished.

Take it from Rob James-Collier, who plays Thomas Barrow, better known to fans of “Downton Abbey” as Evil Thomas, the downstairs servant whose own nefarious touch routinely turns gold into sawdust.

James-Collier earned two university degrees and spent several years in marketing before deciding at age 28 to become an actor.



“I discovered I hated marketing,” he says. So he took some acting classes and the kind of small roles aspiring actors always take before landing Barrow.

“Now I love what I do,” he says. But sure, he allows, all that marketing experience can at times still hover about.

Like it did this summer, when “Downton Abbey” was rocked by plastic water bottle scandal.

Lord Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) and Lady Edith (Laura Carmichael) posed for a Season 5 publicity picture in front of a stately mantelpiece on which was nestled a plastic water bottle.

Plastic water bottles had so not been invented in 1925.

The scandal abated when the cast quickly shot a followup picture acknowledging and joking about their grievous error.

But scandal it was, and James-Collier says it was nothing short of brilliant.

“I have no idea if it was accidental or deliberate,” he says. “But my immediate reaction, from my marketing training, is that this did everything a good marketing campaign is supposed to do.

“It got that picture onto front pages all over the world. It got people talking about the show when it wasn’t even on the air.

“If I were running the campaign, it’s exactly what I would have done.”

Wherever The Case of the Mysterious Water Bottle originated, it’s hardly the only time “Downton” has emerged shining, or scored in a way that PBS shows just don’t score.

Over the last week and a half, more than a millions viewers have watched a nine-minute video in which George Clooney joins the “Downton” cast to promote Britain’s Text Santa charity.

Best of all, for PBS, “Downton” has become the most popular drama in PBS history. The fourth season U.S. premiere drew 10.2 million viewers, more than most commercial broadcast network shows, and while the fifth season audience dropped a bit when it ran this past fall in the U.K., it was still at the top of the pack.

It was primarily “Downton,” PBS officials will happily admit, that lifted PBS from being the 13th most-watched TV network a couple of years ago to the fifth most-watched last year.

So PBS itself, like the show’s fans, wish it could run forever.



That doesn’t happen, though, and executive producer Gareth Naeme remains coy about just how long it will actually run.

“It will end somewhere between Season 5 and Season 10,” he said in early December.


READ MORE HERE: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/downton-abbey-retains-magic-season-article-1.2059841