Mountbatten arrives accompanied by Edwina (Gillian Anderson), his liberal-minded wife and his 18-year-old daughter Pamela (Lily Travers). Meanwhile, in the staff quarters, a love story is born between Jeet Kumar (Manish Dayal), a Hindu, and Aalia Noor (Huma Qureshi), a Muslim beauty. Matters will prove to be extremely difficult on both the geopolitical and a personal level.

Hugh Bonneville writes: “I said yes to this almost before I’d finished reading the script. Director Gurinder Chadha is a ball of energy, I love India and was delighted to re-visit Rajasthan for the first time in 30 years. The House of the title is still a government building, so the Umaid Bhawan hotel in Jodhpur was our principal location. Stayed there, too. Shortest commute to work I’ve ever had. But the hotel remained open throughout filming and so, with hundreds of extras assembled on the magnificent steps, red carpet in place, ready for the arrival of the new Viceroy, we had to stop everything and wait while two guests in white towelling robes and fluffy slippers padded their way down the steps on their way to the hotel pool.”