When one of the royal family visited the set of Downton Abbey yesterday, it was a chance to meet some of the best-known members of the cast, from the Earl of Grantham to Thomas the under-butler.
One series regular was the subject of much gossip during the Duchess of Cambridge’s visit but — probably for the best — was unable to make a personal appearance: the notorious Downton Abbey lobster.
The lobster turns out to have made many appearances during the five series that have been broadcast. In between episodes the lobster, whose performance is not quite as fresh as it once was, goes back in the freezer.
The secrets of the Downton seafood menu were just one of the highlights of a visit during which the duchess was given credit for helping the award-winning programme to become one of Britain’s biggest drama exports.
At Ealing Studios in west London, where many of the below-stairs scenes are filmed, it was Mrs Patmore the cook who stole the show. As Lord Fellowes of West Stafford, the series creator, showed the duchess the kitchen, Mrs Patmore (Lesley Nicol) and Sophie McShera, who plays the kitchen hand Daisy, both warned him not to open the set “refrigerator” because of the bad smell.
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Nicol said that food props were often re-frozen to use again. “We have a salmon that’s a series regular, and a lobster,” she said. “I told her the stories behind all the wonderful food you see on the show. We do have a couple of working hobs as we like to see things bubbling on the screen. But most of the food can be something of a surprise if you aren’t used to it. We had to cook and serve lobster the other day. As you can imagine, it was getting pretty whiffy under the hot lights. But they just put it in the freezer and served it up again.”
Lord Fellowes told the duchess in a speech that her endorsement during her 2011 visit to the United States had helped the series to become a massive international hit. “Your royal highness has played a significant part in the Downton story already,” he said.
“It so happens that just as we were trying to shift Downton in America, you made a visit and someone said ‘had you ever heard of a show called Downton Abbey?’ And you said you’d heard of it, you’d watched it, you’d enjoyed it. This went into the media like an Exocet missile and soon all of America and most of the world knew it,” he added.
Yesterday the duchess was not so much a branch of the Downton marketing department as a fully paid up fan, giggling as Lord Fellowes called her a “functioning memeber of the Downtown team”.