Fackham Hall – This Fast-Paced, Witty Downton Abbey Spoof That's Pleasantly Lightweight.
Maybe the notion of uncertain days in the air: following a long period of dormancy, the comedic send-up is staging a return. The past few months saw the revival of this playful category, which, in its finest form, mocks the self-importance of excessively solemn genres with a flood of exaggerated stereotypes, visual jokes, and dumb-brilliant double entendres.
Playful eras, apparently, create an appetite for deliberately shallow, laugh-filled, pleasantly insubstantial fun.
A Recent Offering in This Absurd Wave
The latest of these goofy parodies arrives as Fackham Hall, a parody of Downton Abbey that needles the easily mockable self-importance of wealthy UK historical series. Co-written by stand-up performer Jimmy Carr and overseen by Jim O'Hanlon, the movie has plenty of material to draw from and wastes none of it.
Starting with a ridiculous beginning to a ludicrous finish, this enjoyable upper-class adventure packs all of its hour and a half with puns and routines that vary from the puerile up to the genuinely funny.
A Pastiche of Upstairs, Downstairs
Similar to Downton, Fackham Hall offers a pastiche of extremely pompous aristocrats and excessively servile staff. The plot centers on the incompetent Lord Davenport (portrayed by a delightfully mannered Damian Lewis) and his anti-reading wife, Lady Davenport (Katherine Waterston). Following the loss of their male heirs in various tragic accidents, their hopes fall upon marrying off their daughters.
The younger daughter, Poppy (Emma Laird), has secured the aristocratic objective of betrothal to the right kinsman, Archibald (a perfectly smarmy Tom Felton). But after she backs out, the onus transfers to the unattached elder sister, Rose (Thomasin McKenzie), who is an old maid of a woman" and and holds dangerously modern ideas concerning women's independence.
Its Laughs Succeeds
The spoof achieves greater effect when joking about the suffocating social constraints imposed on early 20th-century females – a subject frequently explored for po-faced melodrama. The stereotype of idealized womanhood offers the richest comic targets.
The storyline, as is fitting for an intentionally ridiculous send-up, is of lesser importance to the jokes. Carr delivers them arriving at an amiably humorous pace. There is a murder, an incompetent investigation, and a star-crossed attraction featuring the charming street urchin Eric Noone (Ben Radcliffe) and Rose.
Limitations and Lighthearted Fun
It's all in the spirit of playful comedy, though that itself comes with constraints. The dialed-up foolishness inherent to parody may tire over time, and the comic fuel for this specific type expires at the intersection of a skit and a full-length film.
After a while, audiences could long to return to a realm of (very slight) logic. But, one must applaud a wholehearted devotion to the craft. In an age where we might to distract ourselves unto oblivion, we might as well see the funny side.
