Careful with those beans, Carson...oh no, you’ve spilled them!
Has Downton’s butler lifted the lid on TV’s biggest secret?
AS DOWNTON Abbey’s formidable butler Carson, he is normally the sole of discretion, guaranteed to keep any confidence.
But the actor who plays him appears to have given away what was supposed to be one of the best kept secrets of the year.
In an exclusive interview with today’s Event magazine, Jim Carter has let slip how the last-ever episode of Downton Abbey will end when it is broadcast on Christmas Day.
Fans of the smash hit ITV drama who would rather not know should stop reading now.
According to Carter, 67, the very last scene is set on New Year’s Eve, 1925, and features the servants gathered in Downton’s Great Hall for a party.
Rather fittingly, many of them are looking forward to a new life outside the house as well as the New Year.
Carter said: ‘We don’t finish on a climactic note. There are no explosions or charabancs going off cliff edges.
‘All the servants are together in the hall. It is New Year’s Eve, it’s candlelit and there are Christmas decorations left over. It is dark and we quietly sing Auld Lang Syne.
‘It is a nice, low-key, rather muted end to the thing. They said it was a wrap and we looked at each other and thought, “Oh, we’ve finished.”’
The news that the last scene will not have a tragic note is likely to delight fans who complained when Matthew Crawley was killed in the final minutes of the show’s 2012 festive edition. But although the last series will end on a harmonious note, it will also have its fair share of tragedy and heartbreak leading up to that point.
The Mail on Sunday has seen next Sunday’s featurelength opening episode and can confirm the Crawley family and their servants are bracing themselves for an uncertain future.
Everyone accepts the life they have known is no longer sustainable and perhaps Downton itself has become an anachronism.
The Mail on Sunday also understands that the series will include one funeral, but it is not clear if that will involve a major character.
On a happier note, the series is expected to contain no fewer than three weddings.
In today’s interview, Carter gives his strongest indication yet that his character will finally tie the knot with housekeeper Mrs Hughes, played by Phyllis Logan.
He said: ‘One of the last lines is when I say, “It’s going to be a different life.” Mrs Hughes says, “Yes, but together we’ll manage.” That’s the feeling of it.
‘They [ Carson and Mrs Hughes] will be like favoured retainers. I think that’s what happened, really; the old ones who had been there for many years were given a grace-and-favour cottage. They will see out their time on the grounds.’
Carter said the series will provide a fitting ending for all of the characters in the series.
‘It ties up the stories, giving indications of what will happen to the people. I think viewers will be very pleased. They’ll need two hankies.’
Tantalisingly, however, the actor hints that there may be a future for Downton Abbey itself even if some of its best known residents move on.
He said: ‘It’s not the end of Downton Abbey. It’s open as to where people go in the future. Me and Mrs Hughes are inevitably facing retirement, probably, but nothing is absolutely nailed down.
‘We are not closing the house up, we are saying goodbye to the series.’
His comments will lead to fresh speculation about a possible movie spin-off.
Carter, who is married to the actress Imelda Staunton, is adamant that Downton’s global success has not made him a millionaire.
He said: ‘I have made a comfortable living out of it but I live in the same house, drive the same car, we have the same holidays. We are not rich on it.’