Downton Abbey: A New Era review: Plenty of life life in family saga

But while Downton Abbey is entering a new era at the end of the Roaring Twenties, it’s business as usual for fans of the hit ITV drama.

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Downton Abbey: A New Era trailer released

The movies are beginning to find their voice and lazy summers in the French Riviera are becoming de rigueur for well-heeled Brits.

But while Downton Abbey is entering a new era at the end of the Roaring Twenties, it’s business as usual for fans of the hit ITV drama.

Cleverly, writer Julian Fellowes doesn’t stray far from his winning formula in this new big-screen adventure for the aristocratic Crawleys and their ever loyal lackeys.

While his successful first film found comedy in a royal visit, this hugely entertaining follow-up takes the well-trodden path of the British TV spin off and heads to foreign shores.

As the stars of Are You Being Served? hit Spain’s “Costa Plonka”, Lord and Lady Grantham (Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern) head to a villa in the South Of France, bequeathed to Dame Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess by a mysterious amour from the previous century.

Meanwhile, Hollywood has come to Downton.

To raise funds for the cash-strapped estate, Michelle Dockery’s Lady Mary Talbot has accepted an offer from film producer Jack Barber (Hugh Dancy) to use the house as a location for a silent movie.

There’s drama and comedy when cockney diva Myrna Dalgleish (Laura Haddock), and dashing star Guy Dexter (Dominic West) roll up at the gates.

Fellowes cribs from Singin’ In The Rain, as Barber turns the film into a new-fangled talkie and Lady Mary and her star-struck servants pitch in.

The silent movie era and the changing world of international travel give the production designers fresh seams to mine.

But along with the floppy hats and designer sunglasses, there’s plenty of old-fashioned pomp on display at the wedding of Tom (Allen Leech) and maid Lucy ( Tuppence Middleton ).

The couple struck up a romance in the first film just before Tom made the fortuitous discovery that Lucy was the secret illegitimate daughter of Baroness Bagshaw.

And there are plenty of more secrets aired in the latest batch of soapy subplots. Lady Mary is having marital troubles, Lord Grantham is questioning his existence and another much-loved character has been making clandestine visits to Doctor Clarkson (David Robb).

The previous film ended with the Dowager, revealing an unnamed terminal illness. And quite rightly, Maggie Smith takes centre stage as the series enters the modern age.

Fellowes gives another raft of acerbic one-liners and a big role in the film’s touching finale.

The matriarch’s rule may be coming to an end, but there’s plenty of life in this long-running family saga.

In cinemas on Friday