Dan Stevens: It's time for Downton wedding

Dan Stevens: It's time for Downton wedding
Dan Stevens: It's time for Downton wedding

Downton Abbey star Dan Stevens has said that the wedding of his character Matthew Crawley to Lady Mary could not have come at a better time. The pair will finally walk up the aisle in the third series of the show, which begins on Sunday night - and Dan admitted that he did not think viewers would have tolerated anymore delays to their marriage. We would have been hard pushed to stretch the storyline any longer," Dan said. "I think we would have been testing the patience of the nation, dare I say the globe, if we had carried on with that. "But there's still the issue of will they or won't they be happy? Will they or won't they have children, and so on." Viewers can also look forward to the first appearance of Hollywood legend Shirley MacLaine in Sunday night's episode. Co-star Hugh Bonneville said that the actress's first meeting with Maggie Smith - who is set for onscreen fireworks with Shirley's character Martha Levinson - was a memorable one. "It was extraordinary. Shirley lifted Maggie off the ground and said, 'My God! My God! Maggie!'," he said."

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.