Downton Abbey Christmas Special
ITV
Rating: 
We’ve always suspected it, and now we know. Portly Lord Grantham is a man who appreciates a spot of the good stuff. He enjoys a tincture or two, a snifter, a belt round the back of the tonsils. In short, he likes a drink.
And who could blame him? The poor man’s life is entirely dictated by women — his belligerent mother marching around his stately home like Boadicea in a bad mood, his artistic wife playing him with the unerring touch of a concert pianist, and his frosty oldest daughter giving him a jab with an icicle whenever he steps out of line.
Meanwhile, there’s a cellar-ful of fine wines and a servant to trot down and dust off a bottle on demand. Sherry for elevenses, claret with lunch, a decanter of whisky on every desk, and, after dinner, a moment of sacred silence for him to savour.
Return to the fray: Robert James-Collier (left) and Huge Bonneville (right) in the Downton Christmas special
It’s the only time of day when all the assorted daughters, nieces, spouses and other legionaries in his monstrous regiment of women withdraw, leaving the fifth Earl of Grantham and Viscount of Downton alone with his thoughts and a bottle of port.
Abstinence in these circumstances would try the resolve of St Martin, the patron saint of teetotallers.
The Christmas special of Downton Abbey (ITV) was set in 1924, long before the nannying fusspots of the welfare state invented ‘middle-class alcoholism’ and the weekly allowance of units. Good thing, too. Lord Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) would be hurt to think that anyone imagined him an alcoholic, and devastated to be called middle-class. And he probably exceeds his daily unit limit every morning before he’s even had a proper drink.
All this meant that the ominous throbbing noise we heard throughout the show, which we feared was an impending heart attack and which his lordship dismissed as an ulcer, was probably the groaning palpitations of his liver.
Look closely and you could see it whacking away as though he had a pair of bellows trapped under his waistcoat.
At heart, Lord Grantham is more labrador than human, and when his wife, Lady Cora, ordered him to spend four months on the wagon, his eyes grew big and mournful. His ears drooped, his tail slunk between his legs and, with a low yelp, he crawled off to his dog basket.
The cast of the Downton Abbey Christmas special
Most of the episode’s other storylines were either the knotting-up of loose ends or the introduction of next year’s themes.
Chauffeur-turned-estate-manager Branson bowed out, taking little Sybbie with him. That Renaissance masterpiece which the Crawleys had left lying around in the attic for generations fetched a fortune at auction and sorted out the Downton finances.
Carson the butler finally asked Mrs Hughes to marry him, and she promptly dropped her professional deference and called him ‘an old booby’, which does not bode well for married life.
Meanwhile, the Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith) did not run off with her old boyfriend, a character called Prince Kuragin who had apparently wandered into Downton by mistake from a Tolstoy novel.
The biggest relief of all came when the ludicrous murder investigation was tidied away. There hasn’t been such a silly story on TV since Del Boy and Rodders made a million by bottling tap water.
All this felt like housekeeping, packing away old plots to make room for new ones next year.
Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) had her head turned by a dashing toff with a ‘snappy chariot’ — that’s Twenties slang for a sports car — and we can expect fresh romance for her in 2015.
But the best bits were served up by guest star Alun Armstrong, as Lord Sinderby’s snobbish butler Stowell, and Robert James-Collier as the deliciously devious footman Thomas Barrow.
Stowell managed to upset both Barrow and Lady Mary, which is like declaring war on Russia and China simultaneously. Ignominious defeat was guaranteed; the only question was whether they would boil their victim alive or chop him into mincemeat.
In the end, they opted to squish him flat, like a bluebottle bashed by a rolled-up newspaper.
It was a pleasure to see Barrow back at his nastiest: he spent most of the last series smoking and wishing he wasn’t gay, which would have been tiresome if it had lasted just ten minutes, never mind ten episodes.
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