IT IS Downton Abbey with laughs. Hollywood is to come to Yorkshire to make a country house comedy for the American market.
Number One Yorkshire, set in 1901 with an American butler as the protagonist, is to begin filming next year at Carlton Towers in North Yorkshire, the stately home of Lord Gerald Fitzalan-Howard, younger brother of the Duke of Norfolk.
It will be directed by Jon Turteltaub, whose films include the 2013 comedy Last Vegas, starring Robert De Niro and Michael Douglas, and National Treasure, with Nicolas Cage.
Featuring disgraced aristocrats, a shooting party and a nouveau riche coal baron keen for further ennoblement, the film is set in the days before Queen Victoria’s death. Even Harry Houdini, the escapologist who was on tour in Britain at the time, makes an appearance.
Edward VII, a guest at the shooting party as Prince of Wales, is expected to be played by Alfred Molina, who has previously starred in Magnolia, Spider-Man 2 and The Da Vinci Code. Naomi Watts, who played Diana, Princess of Wales in the 2013 film Diana, and her fellow British actress Keeley Hawes, who starred in BBC1’s remake of Upstairs Downstairs between 2010 and 2012, are likely to be approached to play Lady “Totty” Skipton, who has an illicit affair with the butler.
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The scriptwriter, Nicholas Sercombe, is believed to be keen on casting Vince Vaughn, who starred in Wedding Crashers and The Break-Up, as the butler.
Sercombe, who based some of the detail on the country estates where he attends shooting parties, said: “The film is more upstairs than down. The butler is the architect of the entire story. Although he was born in England, he lived in America since the age of 18 or 19. It’s a displacement comedy with a little bit of Gosford Park set over three days in 1901.”
Filming will take place in the grounds of Holkham Hall in Norfolk, as well as Carlton Towers. Turteltaub said: “To be able to work in the UK and film in one of the great historical estates is a dream come true.”