London (AFP)

The English aristocrats favorite fans of series around the world have made their return, this time on the big screen, in the feature film "Downton Abbey", premiered Monday night in London.

Nine years after the release of the first episode of the series, stopped in 2015 after six seasons, the film "Downton Abbey" brings together the Crawley family at the end of the 1920s. It is waiting for a major event: the visit of King George V and Queen Mary.

"I did not particularly think about a film when the series stopped (...) but there was this kind of wave of demand for the film and finally it became reality", explained to AFP Julian Fellowes, creator and screenwriter of the series and film, before screening in central London.

The film will be released on Friday in the UK and on September 25 in France.

The whole cast of the saga is there, including Maggie Smith, the cantankerous but terribly endearing Dowager Countess, who at first refused to slip back into the family's oldest robes.

Yet Granthill's character, Lady Violet, with her delightfully cowardly replicas and hilarious mimicry, brought her world-wide celebrity, when at 84, she won two Oscars, four Emmy awards, three Golden Globes, a Tony Award and five Baftas.

Other actors joined the team as Imelda Staunton (the odious Dolores Umbridge in Harry Potter), who plays Lady Bagshaw. She joins her husband in town, Jim Carter, who plays retired butler Charles Carson.

If the couple has scenes in common, Imelda Staunton has not managed to be served by her husband: "I did not get anything from him ... He was on the other side of the dining room!" , she confided, falsely outraged, to AFP.

The TV series recounts the ups and downs of a family of aristocrats and their servants, from 1912 to late 1925, mixing small and great history.

The film resumes in 1927, a year after the general strike between the British working world and Stanley Baldwin's conservative government and government.

Screenwriter Julian Fellowes told AFP that this period had "always interested" him. "There are only 50 years between 1890 and 1940, but the world has changed profoundly in Europe (during this period)," he observes.

- Glamour -

The film by American Michael Engler, who has produced episodes of series like Sex and the City or The Big C, promises even more glamor and pomp than the series, with rivalries and romances on every floor.

"Julian has a lot of talent: writing for 20 characters and giving a good story to everyone, all in two hours, it's amazing," said Kevin Doyle, who plays Mr Molesley, a servant turned by the finish of the royal couple.

Awarded at the Golden Globes and Emmy Awards as well as British Baftas, the "Downton Abbey" series has been seen by approximately 120 million people in more than 200 countries.

Interviewed by AFP, actor Allen Leech (Tom Branson in the film) says that among his biggest fans is Michelle Obama, the wife of the former US president, whom he met at the White House.

Just as the team was presenting the film, there were new Brexit debates in the House of Commons.

In this regard, the Irishman Allen Leech recalled that the 1998 peace agreements - which ended three decades of civil war in Northern Ireland - had "promised that there would be no return of a land border in Ireland ", which may happen in case of Brexit without agreement.

"The UK has to respect that," he pleaded. "If you (the United Kingdom) want to leave, you have to settle this question".

© 2019 AFP