After the hors d’oeuvres of a teaser trailer, some posters and much buzz-building at, er, Comic Con, the starter has arrived in the lavish banquet that is the release of the Downton Abbey movie.
The first full-length trailer offers confirmation that the latest instalment in the fortunes of the Grantham clan and their adoring lackeys involves the run-up to a royal visit, with George V and his wife, Mary, coming for lunch some time in 1927.
This means a prior inspection by ferocious royal butler David Haig, who locks horns with the staff, before facing off against veteran help Mr Carson (Jim Carter) in a battle for silver service supremacy.
Meanwhile, another cast incomer, Imelda Staunton (Carter’s wife, playing Lady Bagshaw), defends the honour of her maid, played by Tuppence Middleton, of whom Maggie Smith’s dowager countess disapproves, but Allen Leach’s Tom Branson finds himself falling.
Smith’s character delivers no fewer than four withering putdowns in the brief promo, suggesting fans will be well sated by Fellowes’s script.
The film is released in the UK on 13 September and in the US on 20 September
