A Wedding, A Sex Scene And An Exploding Corset

Sex will liven up Downton Abbey this series with the show’s first raunchy scenes set to be aired, according to several media reports. Michelle Dockery, who plays Lady Mary Crawley, revealed in an interview with the Telegraph: "There’s a wedding, a funeral and a sex scene. I’m in two – no, wait,” she corrects herself. “I’m in one of those..." Her revelation will spark speculation among the show’s 10 million fans over whether she will marry Matthew Crawley or perhaps settle for Sir Richard Carlisle.

Mary – the cold and snobbish eldest daughter of the Earl of Grantham – has already been at the centre of a sex scandal. In the first series the naughty aristocrat managed to smuggle a Turkish diplomat into her bed, where he promptly (and inconveniently) expired. Other contenders for the romp include Edith and new maid Ethel, who flirts with the officers who come to convalesce at Downton. A show insider said: “Last time the liaison between Mary and her soon-to-expire lover was barely shown, this time there will be rather more bare flesh on display.”


Dockery’s porcelain-white skin and cut-glass tones would give any Lady a run for their money, but in reality she comes from Chadwell Heath, her father is a former lorry driver turned surveyor and her mother delivers meals on wheels. Despite having no theatrical bent themselves, her parents encouraged their youngest daughter to pursue acting. “I think my parents knew before I did that I was going to be an actress because I was doing impressions of Margaret Thatcher at the age of four.”

When musing on the reasons for the show’s success: “It feels like a familiar period drama. But because it’s not a remake, or an adaptation of Austen or Dickens, the audience is seeing these stories for the first time and so they feel it is theirs," she states. "And no one knows the ending of an episode, in the way you would if it was an Austen adaptation.”

The second series runs from 1916-1919 and features scenes from the trenches, while Downton Abbey is being turned into a convalescent home for soldiers. “It wouldn’t feel right if too much time was taken away from the house,” says Dockery. “The abbey itself is like a character.” Lady Mary also has to get her hands dirty in the war effort. “She has to muck in… she does even end up wearing an apron at one point.” Unthinkable! For one of Downton’s highlights is the fabulous clothes that Lady Mary wears. Although she is in casual jumper and jeans today, Dockery yearns for more formal times.

“I think we’ve lost our femininity a little,” she says. “It was a wonderful period when you would dress for dinner. Even wearing your Sunday best for church – it’s a shame we’ve lost that.” In this series, though, Downton’s clothes have become slightly more comfortable – “In two outfits I’m not even wearing a corset!” – a relief to the actress given the 12-hour days and six-day weeks spent filming.

Talking of corsets, and to the sorrow of Lady Sybil’s growing legion of male fans, co-star Jessica Brown Findlay literally burst out of hers in a scene that will never be seen on TV. The 22-year-old, who plays the free-spirited aristocrat in Downton Abbey, reveals: “I had really bad hay fever and was sitting in my trailer when I sneezed and burst my corset of the evening dress I was wearing. It went ‘Pooowww!’ I came out in a dressing-gown looking really guilty and one of the runners said: ‘Oh my God, what have you done?’ “My corset had to be sewn on at the speed of lightning because I was in the next scene.”

Brown Findlay is also set to reveal her wilder side in her debut feature film, Albatross. The actress has ditched her corset to play a teen rebel in the low-budget Brit flick. The coming-of-age comedy drama sees her character take a job as a cleaner in a seaside hotel owned by a middle-aged author and his wife. Emelia becomes friends with the couple's bookish daughter Beth (Felicity Jones), but has an affair with Beth's father due to their shared love of writing. It’s fair to say she makes an impression when she first appears in her new film role. Asked by a shopkeeper to prove she’s old enough to buy the bottle of wine, she gives him a look, pulls up her top and flashes her breasts. No, she says, that film scene apart, she has never, as far as she can recall, flashed at a shopkeeper or anyone else for that matter.

Filmed in the Isle of Man in just six weeks, Albatross is released later this month.