Stars of Downton Abbey, including Jim Carter as Mr Carson.
Stars of Downton Abbey, including Jim Carter as Mr Carson.
As Downton Abbey prepares to close the green baize door for the last time, Stephen Jewell recalls highlights of the long-running series.
"Kiri Te Kanawa was very good at Bananagrams." After six years as housekeeper Elsie Hughes in Downton Abbey, one of Phyllis Logan's most cherished memories is of playing the online word game with the Kiwi soprano, who guest-starred as Australian singer Nellie Melba in the fourth season of the popularITV period drama.
"Whenever, I went into the green room, I'd see Maggie Smith and Penelope Wilton sitting there in all their finery, shouting 'Split' and 'Yield', which was hilarious," she laughs. "Certain people were very good at it, like Laura Carmichael, who is Lady Edith. So whenever they were playing, I didn't stand a chance, although I got better as the series went on."
Dame Kiri also participated in Bafta Celebrates Downton Abbey, a tribute staged to coincide with the upcoming final series and attended by series creator Julian Fellowes, plus current and past cast members.
"She sang the beautiful song she sang in the show," says Wilton, who as Isobel Crawley has provided the foil for Maggie Smith's incorrigible Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham.
Claiming it was always known that the show "wouldn't go on forever", Wilton admits the news that Downton Abbey was ending still came as a shock.
"We were prepared for that from the beginning, but it still didn't really hit home until almost the last day," she says. "First of all, it was going to be three series and then it was four, and now it's six with this series, which is like an appendage on the end.
"Julian wanted to do an extra season to bring all the characters into landing in a way that was appropriate and satisfying for him and hopefully the audience as well," adds Hugh Bonneville, whose character Robert Crawley, the Earl of Grantham, is presented with truly formidable challenges that will shape the future of the abbey for many years to come.
Maggie Smith and Kiri Te Kanawa. Photo / Nick Briggs
"The scripts this year had a real end-of-an-era feel to them, in terms of the show and the estate," he says.
"Each series has had some kind of jeopardy and threat hanging over the estate in some way or another. But that is brought home in the first episode of this series when the neighbouring estate is sold off because the economics don't add up any more.
"The Crawleys have to adapt or die and Robert certainly has to step up to the plate and do his best, otherwise they will be having an auction at Downton very soon as well."
"It gives the last series an added energy, because there's this underlying theme, which is the destruction of life as they know it," adds Elizabeth McGovern, who plays Robert's wife, Lady Cora.
"History is bringing their way of life to a close, just as we're bringing the series to a close. That gives the story a kind of bittersweet depth and this season is worth watching because of that frisson."
As Lord Grantham notes in the first episode, history cannot be stopped in its tracks. "Robert realises that Downton could be next if they don't rationalise and change things," says Bonneville. "So he and Carson have a talk about downsizing the staff. I mean, 'Who has an under-butler these days'?"
With Robert and Cora grabbing a sneaky late-night snack from the kitchen, episode one also features a subtle shift in class conventions.
"That's something they simply wouldn't have done a couple of years ago, so there is that blurring of social structures," Bonneville says. "The green baize door is gradually disintegrating and social mobility is changing, as the idea of having a career in service isn't necessarily as appealing it was five years ago. People are shifting around, and there's a particular incident halfway through the new series, where someone who had started out in service has now turned themselves into something completely different.
Lady Mary Crawley in a scene from Downton Abbey.
"They're a self-made person, which is an interesting shift from what we've previously been used to."
In addition to more wide-ranging societal issues, Jim Carter - the Crawleys' trusted butler, Carson - reveals that most of the characters will also have achieved some personal resolution by the time Downton Abbey concludes with this year's Christmas episode. "Julian has wrapped it up very well," he says. "You see people going forward into a sort of new life and new era, but with a little bit of hope as well."
Carter was pleased that Downton's final moment was left to the very last day of filming, rather than being shot in a random sequence. "Normally, you don't do that because with most films and television series, everything is done out of order," he says. "But we finished up in the servants' hall and it was a candlelit scene, so it was quite quiet and reflective. Then they said, 'Cut.' It was like, 'Oh, that's the end'!"
According to Carter, it made for quite a poignant occasion. "We didn't expect that, because, as an actor, you do a job and then you move on," he says. "That's the rhythm of our lives. You meet all these new people, and then you go and do something completely different. But we really got very emotional, and all the big men in the crew were crying. It really was quite affecting, so I hope the audience will enjoy it, as it's the right time to say goodbye to all the stories."
Downton Abbey premieres on Prime at 8.30pm on Thursday
