Watch George Clooney in Downton Abbey: The Full Episode

George Clooney and Downton Abbey? Thanks to UK charity Text Santa (which raises money for a variety of good causes), the Hollywood star made his first (and probably last) appearance in Downton Abbey as the Right Honorable George Oceans Gravity, Marquis of Hollywood in a nine minute pastiche of the long-running drama.

Owing a little more to Dickens’ Christmas Carol than your average episode (although writer Julian Fellowes has made homages before, including an outrageous spin on Mrs Minniver in the first series) we have Lord Crawley losing the family fortune (again!) and wishing he had never been born (riffing It’s a Wonderful Life in to the bargain). In for a penny, in for a pound as they say!

So appears an angel played by the lovely Joanna Lumley who whisks him away to see what life would have been like without him.  This enables the new Lord, played by Clooney to make his appearance and, well, anyway, here’s the whole episode.  It’s a massive plug, of course, for the Text Santa (and rightly so) which this year made over £5 miliion.