‘The second series covers Hong Kong, Tokyo, Miami, New Orleans, Venice and Berlin. It hasn’t stopped being repeated since it launched on Sky Atlantic last year and the second one is due this summer. He has a huge new following from his TV series Richard E Grant’s Hotel Secrets, where he travelled the world revealing the scandalous deaths, murders, robberies and sexual shenanigans that have taken place in the world’s most luxurious hotels. When I stepped onto the set at Highclere I thought, “Yes, I’m home” – I’m upstairs naturally.’ Later he tweets that he plays the part of an art historian invited to Downton as a guest of the Granthams and that his character is set to cause ructions.

They’ve all been working on this for four years and then people from outside come in.’ He pulls a nervous face. It’s a bit like being the new boy at school. ‘Yes I do and I can’t tell you, but it’s going to be good. The fourth one hasn’t been written yet.’ So he already knows what’s happening to everybody this series, not just his character. He’s tweeted that his character’s name is Simon Bricker, and I try to make him tell me more about his part. Richard in Doctor Who as Dr Simeon spent the last year creating his new unisex perfume Jack which launches next month That’s never gone away and I think the day it does is the day you have to hang up your tights and put away your make-up. But you know, until it’s actually edited and comes out you’re always slightly wary because you don’t know if your part will be cut.

I spoke to her last week and told her she can tell her fellow bridge players it has come to pass. “When are you going on Downton? Why are you not in Downton and when will you be in it?” She always thought it was about time. ‘It’s the thing my mother, who’s 84, has asked me about on a monthly basis since it started. He must have been hoping that Fellowes would write him a part in Downton.

It just came out of the blue? ‘Yes,’ he says. I think he wants to tell me but he can’t. I ask if the part was especially written with Richard in mind. I was in the film Gosford Park, also written by Julian Fellowes, 12 years ago. Is he Lady Mary’s lover? ‘I’m an upstairs character and they’ve told me I can’t say what I am for fear of my knees being removed. ‘Four episodes,’ he says, looking as though he’s savouring the prospect. We meet the day before he’s to go on set for his Downton debut. Richard E Grant is about to make his Downton Abbey debut so we caught up with him

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