Fackham Hall Review – A Fast-Paced, Funny Takeoff on Downton That's Delightfully Lightweight.

Perhaps the feeling of an ending era in the air: following a long period of inactivity, the parody is making a return. This summer observed the re-emergence of this playful category, which, when done well, skewers the pretensions of overly serious genre with a barrage of heightened tropes, sight gags, and stupid-clever puns.

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

The Newest Addition in This Silly Wave

The latest of these absurd spoofs comes in the form of Fackham Hall, a Downton Abbey spoof that needles the very pokeable pretensions of wealthy British period dramas. Penned in part by UK-Irish comic Jimmy Carr and directed by Jim O'Hanlon, the feature has a wealth of source material to draw from and wastes none of it.

Starting with a ridiculous beginning to a preposterous conclusion, this amusing upper-class adventure crams all of its 97 minutes with gags and sketches running the gamut from the juvenile all the way to the genuinely funny.

A Pastiche of Upstairs, Downstairs

Similar to Downton, Fackham Hall delivers a pastiche of very self-important aristocrats and very obsequious servants. The narrative revolves around the feckless Lord Davenport (portrayed by an enjoyably affected Damian Lewis) and his book-averse wife, Lady Davenport (Katherine Waterston). Having lost their four sons in a series of tragic accidents, their plans now rest on marrying off their two girls.

The junior daughter, Poppy (Emma Laird), has secured the aristocratic objective of an engagement to the appropriate kinsman, Archibald (a perfectly smarmy Tom Felton). However when she withdraws, the pressure transfers to the unmarried elder sister, Rose (Thomasin McKenzie), described as an old maid at 23 and and possesses unladylike ideas about a woman's own mind.

Where the Humor Works Best

The spoof fares much better when sending up the oppressive social constraints imposed on Edwardian-era females – a topic often mined for po-faced melodrama. The archetype of respectable, enviable femininity offers the most fertile punching bags.

The plot, as befitting a deliberately silly spoof, is of lesser importance to the bits. The co-writer serves them up coming at an amiably humorous pace. The film features a murder, a bungled inquiry, and an illicit love affair featuring the charming street urchin Eric Noone (Ben Radcliffe) and Rose.

A Note on Frivolous Amusement

The entire affair is in the spirit of playful comedy, but that very quality comes with constraints. The amplified absurdity inherent to parody may tire quickly, and the comic fuel in this instance runs out at the intersection of sketch and a full-length film.

After a while, audiences could long to return to stories with (at least a modicum of) reason. Nevertheless, one must applaud a sincere commitment to this type of comedy. Given that we are to distract ourselves to death, we might as well laugh at it.