George Clooney joined the cast of Downton Abbey during Friday’s Text Santa appeal, which resulted in a delightful and hilarious parody of the beloved period drama.
ITV’s annual appeal aims to raise awareness and donations for six U.K. charities through one-off specials, celebrity challenges and live performances. The supported charities for 2014 are: Alzheimer’s Society, Guide Dogs, Marie Curie Cancer Care, Teenage Cancer Trust, Together for Short Lives, and WellChild.
The Downton Abbey special, in particular, was very tongue-in-cheek. Playing on the theme of It’s A Wonderful Life, it poses the question of what life at the Grantham estate would be like if Robert had never been born — following his discovery that he’d lost all of their money in a poor investment. Again.
We won’t spoil George Clooney’s role here, but some of the highlights for us were seeing Lady Violet swooning off her chair, an interesting game of poker occurring downstairs, and Thomas. Yes, just Thomas. You’ll have to watch for yourself to see why his performance brought tears of laughter to our eyes.
The special aired in two parts, which ITV have kindly provided via their YouTube channel for your viewing delight. You can watch them below:
George Clooney wasn’t the only special guest to make an appearance alongside the Downton Abbey cast. Joanna Lumley (Absolutely Fabulous), Jeremy Piven (Mr Selfridge) and Downton creator and writer Julian Fellows were also in attendance. We’ll definitely be using the phrase “well yes, but that’s cutlery” at some point. It helped to ease the agonising wait for the Christmas special episode, which will be airing December 25.
You can still donate to the Text Santa appeal if you’re able by texting SANTA5 to 70760 to donate £5. Alternatively, you can visit this website to make a donation instead.