Welcome back to DOWNTON ABBEY

There has been a huge, stately home-size hole in our lives since 2015, when fans of TV drama Downton Abbey watched its Christmas Day finale and had to come to terms with the fact that it was all over. Over, that is, until its silver screen debut, with Downton Abbey the movie released on 13 September. It was a natural progression for the TV series, says the film’s director Michael Engler: ‘The world of Downton Abbey, even on television, was a very cinematic experience because of the scale, the locations, the period, and so many things about it. There was always an inherent possibility for a large-scale cinematic event.’

Engler had previously directed four episodes of the TV series, including that Christmas finale, so is well placed to comment on how making Downton for a film compares with making it for television.

‘The process is essentially identical. Again, it has to do with scale. Because in the