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DOWNTON ABBEY **
Dir: Michael Engler (PG, 122 mins)
Fans of the American-pleasing upper-class British period soap confection rejoice! After six series and 52 TV episodes, the cultural phenomenon that romanticised the aristocracy and reinforced class stereotypes gets a big screen outing. The show has looked cinematic before, with its lush period settings, costume and starry cast (remember the George Clooney cameo?), but now writer Julian Fellowes, desperate to wring every financial drop out of his creation, has gone widescreen with the thinnest of plots. Lord and Lady Grantham, a returning Hugh Bonneville and Elisabeth McGovern, are about to welcome King George V and Queen Mary to their humble abode along with their retinue of servants. The below-stairs help, led by series regulars Phyllis Logan, Jim Carter, Brendan Coyle and Joanne Froggatt, will have their work cut out for them, especially when dastardly King’s servant David Haig wants to use his royal staff rather than the household servants to wait on table! If you liked the TV series you will lap up this fluffery; there were occasional flashes of intrigue and relevance to modern audiences in the series but this is aimed squarely at escapism, something to unite Brexit Britain as the lower classes pander to the whims of the wealthy and entitled and… oh.
Opens Sept 13