Downton Abbey series three to be set in the 1920s

ITV1 costume drama Downton Abbey will roar into the 1920s after television bosses commissioned a third series. It will be written by show creator Julian Fellowes and will follow the Crawley family and their servants into the post-war world of 1920 and 1921 England. Julian said: "I am extremely grateful to ITV for this. I have grown very fond of my Downton family and I certainly do not want to say goodbye to them quite yet." The current series, which has seen the characters come to terms with the First World War and the Spanish flu pandemic of 1919, has had a more critical reception than the first series. with the complicated plot and number of adverts coming under fire. But even more viewers have tuned in, with an average audience of 11.5 million watching the first six episodes of this series. Stars including Dame Maggie Smith, Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern, Michelle Dockery, Jim Carter, Joanne Froggatt and Brendan Coyle will all appear in the new series. ITV's director of drama commissioning Laura Mackie said: "We're absolutely delighted to be bringing Downton Abbey back for a third series, as we follow the inhabitants of Downton as they move into the Roaring Twenties. "It's rare to find a drama that the audience connects with so strongly and we're extremely proud to have commissioned a series that has become such a phenomenon."

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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.