Downton Abbey will end while it's still popular, says Laura Carmichael

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Downton Abbey star Laura Carmichael has claimed Julian Fellowes will end the period drama while it is still a hit with viewers.

Carmichael, 28, who plays Lady Edith, said Fellowes did not want to run the show into the ground.

“I know it’s his intention to write until the point that seems right [to stop]. It won’t be on forever,” she told the Radio Times.

She added: “I say that, what do I know, I don’t know, I really don’t know! But I don’t think that’s his ambition.”

The ITV drama, which is currently in its fifth series, has received a decline in ratings. Its first episode attracted its lowest audience for an opener since the drama began in 2010.

Last month, Hugh Bonneville, who plays the Earl of Grantham, said Julian Fellowes would want to “quit while he’s ahead”.

“There will be an end. [Executive producer] Gareth Neame has said he reckons it will run between five and ten years, so we’ve made it to halfway.

“I think there will be a natural end and I’m sure Julian will want to quit while he’s ahead.”

Neame said at the official Downton Abbey press launch in August that he hoped the series would continue until “Margaret Thatcher’s landslide” in 1983.

“The strange effect of this show about a family, a ‘soap’ if you will, is that the more you get to know them, the more you go on a journey with these characters,” he said.

“Somehow, I’ve found myself more compelled by them, not bored and feeling like their stories are cold.”