Fackham Hall Review – This Rapid-Fire, Funny Downton Abbey Spoof Which Is Refreshingly Throwaway.

Perhaps the sense of end times around us: subsequent to a lengthy span of dormancy, the parody is enjoying a return. The past few months witnessed the re-emergence of this unserious film style, which, when done well, lampoons the grandiosity of overly serious dramas with a torrent of heightened tropes, physical comedy, and dumb-brilliant double entendres.

Playful periods, it seems, give rise to self-awarely frivolous, laugh-filled, refreshingly shallow amusement.

The Latest Entry in This Goofy Resurgence

The most recent of these absurd spoofs is Fackham Hall, a parody of Downton Abbey that pokes fun at the highly satirizable pretensions of gilded English costume epics. Co-written by British-Irish comedian Jimmy Carr and directed by Jim O'Hanlon, the movie has plenty of material to draw from and uses all of it.

Starting with a ludicrous start to a ludicrous finish, this amusing silver-spoon romp fills each of its runtime with gags and sketches that vary from the puerile to the truly humorous.

A Send-Up of Aristocrats and Servants

Similar to Downton, Fackham Hall delivers a spoof of extremely pompous the nobility and excessively servile help. The story revolves around the incompetent Lord Davenport (brought to life by an enjoyably affected Damian Lewis) and his literature-hating wife, Lady Davenport (Katherine Waterston). Following the loss of their children in a series of unfortunate mishaps, their hopes now rest on marrying off their two girls.

The junior daughter, Poppy (Emma Laird), has achieved the family goal of a promise to marry the suitable close relative, Archibald (an impeccably slimy Tom Felton). Yet once she withdraws, the burden shifts to the single elder sister, Rose (Thomasin McKenzie), considered a spinster at 23 and and possesses unladylike ideas about female autonomy.

Where the Comedy Succeeds

The spoof achieves greater effect when joking about the suffocating expectations placed on Edwardian-era ladies – a subject frequently explored for self-serious drama. The trope of idealized ladylike behavior supplies the most fertile comic targets.

The narrative thread, as is fitting for an intentionally ridiculous send-up, takes a back seat to the jokes. The writer serves them up maintaining an amiably humorous clip. The film features a murder, a farcical probe, and a forbidden romance featuring the plucky pickpocket Eric Noone (Ben Radcliffe) and Rose.

Limitations and Lighthearted Fun

It's all in lighthearted fun, though that itself imposes restrictions. The amplified silliness of a spoof might grate quickly, and the mileage in this instance runs out at the intersection of sketch and feature.

At a certain point, one may desire to return to a realm of (very slight) reason. Yet, you have to admire a wholehearted devotion to this type of comedy. In an age where we might to amuse ourselves unto oblivion, let's at least see the funny side.