George Clooney to appear in Downton Abbey

George Clooney, right, and his fiancee, Amal Alamuddin. Maurizio Degl’innocenti / EPA

The UK television network ITV has confirmed that the Hollywood superstar George Clooney will appear in a special episode of its smash-hit historical drama Downton Abbey.

Clooney is believed to have already filmed the mini-episode, which will be broadcast in December as part of ITV’s annual Text Santa Christmas charity drive.

The appearance will reunite Clooney on screen with his good pal Hugh Bonneville, who plays Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham in the show. It will be the first time the pair have appeared on screen together since the Clooney-directed The Monuments Men, which debuted this year’s Berlinale.

ITV declined to give any details of Clooney’s role or the storyline for the one-off. And fans hoping that the appearance might lead to a starring role in the show proper are in for a disappointment – the broadcaster said the actor would not be appearing in any other episode of the show.

If the reports that Clooney has already filmed his appearance are correct, that would at least scrub one venue off the list of potential wedding locations for Clooney and his Lebanese-British fiancée Amal Alamuddin.

Highclere Castle, the main Downton Abbey filming location, had been hotly tipped after “sources” claimed Clooney had taken a private tour of the castle in May.

That doesn’t help those trying to pinpoint exactly where and when the pair will tie the knot, though.

Even if we accept that Clooney’s tour of Highclere was a working visit, we are still left with a number of possible locations – in Italy, the UK and Lebanon.

Such is the speculation, media interest and growing hysteria over the wedding, Chelsea Old Town Hall in London – which recently issued a certificate of No Impedement to Marriage for the couple – felt the need to post a notice on the door at the weekend stating that Clooney and Alamuddin would definitely not be getting married there, after fans and paparazzi began to gather in increasing numbers.

Meanwhile, the mayor of Laglio, the Italian town on the shore of Lake Como in which Clooney owns a lakeside mansion, has imposed a strict no-sail zone within 100 metres of Clooney’s home, fuelling rumours that the wedding will take place there.

While picking up a humanitarian award in Tuscany recently, Clooney, meanwhile, suggested that the wedding would be in Venice.

Taking Clooney at his word seems like a reasonable option, but the world’s frantic gossip press prefers to assume this is a ruse by the actor to throw them off his trail.

Even the leader of Lebanon’s Progressive Socialist Party, Walid Jumblatt, has entered the fray. The politician last month offered a delegation of Druze sheikhs to the pair (Alamuddin is from a Druze background) as a means of tempting them to Lebanon for their nuptials, adding: “Tell me when George Clooney will be coming to Lebanon so I can greet him in Mukhtara.”