‘Downton Abbey’ movie’s Royal visit is based on a true story
The release of the long-awaited Downton Abbey movie is almost upon us.
Reuniting almost the entire cast of ITV’s hit period drama series, the film sees some very special guests coming to stay at Downton – royalty, nonetheless!
It was revealed earlier this year that the movie’s plot finds “the Crawley family and their army of maids, butlers, cooks, and assorted domestics thrown into disarray by the impending arrival of King George V and Queen Mary.”
But we didn’t know that this storyline was actually based on real life events!
Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes explained to Vanity Fair that he needed “a central story strand that would bind everyone together—that would affect the characters upstairs and downstairs and in the village.”
Luckily, the writer then discovered that King George and Queen Mary had taken a trip to Wentworth Woodhouse in Yorkshire in 1912.
However, the movie’s visit is set fifteen years later, in 1927.
Fellowes revealed: “Downton is also in Yorkshire. And so it seemed to me quite a good parallel, [and something] that the servants and the family would be equally as excited about.
“In a film, every story has to be resolved within that film, and you want a unifying bond in a film—so it isn’t too scattered in its focus. That’s what the royal visit has provided us—an event that involves everyone in the house.
“And they all have different responses and different duties, but they’re all in that sense working towards the same end, which is that the visit should be a success. So we feel that being played out.”
The Downton Abbey film will be released in the UK on Friday 13th September and in the USA on Friday 20th September.
An official tie-in book, taking a look behind the scenes at the making of the movie, was announced this week.
Downton Abbey: The Complete Collection DVD box set is available on Amazon.