DOWNTON Abbey will be back in cinemas with a sequel this Christmas.

As well as the original cast, Hugh Dancy, Laura Haddock, Nathalie Baye and Dominic West will join.

Gareth Neame, the film's producer and executive chairman of Carnival Films, said: "After a very challenging year with so many of us separated from family and friends, it is a huge comfort to think that better times are ahead and that next Christmas we will be reunited with the much-beloved characters of Downton Abbey."

The film, penned once again by Julian Fellowes, began production last week and is set to release on December 22.
The first movie, in 2019, followed a royal visit to the Crawley family and Downton staff.
Critics were largely united in calling the film a decent, if unspectacular, adaptation.
The hugely popular TV series aired on ITV from 2010 to 2015 and followed the fortunes of the aristocratic Crawley family and their downstairs servants at a Yorkshire country estate.
Simon Curtis, whose credits include My Week With Marilyn, will direct the sequel.

Scenes from the first movie were filmed in Little Germany in October 2018.

Burnett Street was closed to traffic today, and lighting was visible on adjoining Cater Street, blocked to the public.

It is not the only Bradford link to the popular period drama.

Bradford actress Sophie McShera, a former pupil of St Joseph’s College in Manningham, played kitchen maid Daisy Mason. The drama also features in its cast Dame Maggie Smith, Hugh Bonneville, Jim Carter, Phyllis Logan and Elizabeth McGovern.