Fackham Hall Review – This Fast-Paced, Humorous Parody of Downton Abbey Which Is Refreshingly Ephemeral.

Perhaps the sense of end times around us: following a long period of inactivity, the comedic send-up is enjoying a return. The recent season observed the rebirth of this lighthearted genre, which, at its best, skewers the pretensions of pompously earnest genres with a torrent of exaggerated stereotypes, physical comedy, and stupid-clever puns.

Unserious times, so it goes, beget deliberately shallow, joke-dense, refreshingly shallow fun.

A Recent Entry in This Goofy Trend

The most recent of these silly send-ups comes in the form of Fackham Hall, a takeoff on the British period drama that needles the easily mockable airs of wealthy UK historical series. The screenplay comes from UK-Irish comic Jimmy Carr and overseen by Jim O'Hanlon, the film has a wealth of source material to mine and uses all of it.

From a ridiculous beginning and culminating in a ludicrous finish, this amusing aristocratic caper packs all of its runtime with puns and routines ranging from the puerile all the way to the authentically hilarious.

A Pastiche of The Gentry and Staff

In the vein of Downton, Fackham Hall delivers a caricature of overly dignified aristocrats and excessively servile staff. The plot centers on the incompetent Lord Davenport (portrayed by a wonderfully pretentious Damian Lewis) and his book-averse wife, Lady Davenport (Katherine Waterston). Having lost their male heirs in separate unfortunate mishaps, their plans fall upon marrying off their two girls.

The younger daughter, Poppy (Emma Laird), has secured the aristocratic objective of an engagement to the appropriate first cousin, Archibald (a perfectly smarmy Tom Felton). However when she pulls out, the pressure transfers to the single elder sister, Rose (Thomasin McKenzie), described as an old maid of a woman" and and holds radically progressive ideas about a woman's own mind.

Its Comedy Succeeds

The spoof is significantly more successful when sending up the stifling social constraints forced upon pre-war females – a topic often mined for po-faced melodrama. The archetype of proper, coveted femininity provides the most fertile material for mockery.

The plot, as one would expect from an intentionally ridiculous send-up, is of lesser importance to the gags. Carr delivers them arriving at an amiably humorous rate. Included is a killing, an incompetent investigation, and a forbidden romance involving the charming thief Eric Noone (Ben Radcliffe) and Rose.

A Note on Pure Silliness

Everything is in lighthearted fun, though that itself comes with constraints. The amplified absurdity characteristic of the genre may tire over time, and the mileage in this instance runs out at the intersection of a skit and feature.

At a certain point, you might wish to go back to stories with (at least a modicum of) coherence. But, you have to applaud a sincere commitment to this type of comedy. Given that we are to distract ourselves unto oblivion, let's at least see the funny side.