A Look at Fackham Hall – This Fast-Paced, Funny Downton Abbey Spoof That's Delightfully Lightweight.

Perhaps the sense of an ending era around us: following a long period of dormancy, the spoof is making a comeback. The recent season witnessed the revival of this lighthearted genre, which, in its finest form, mocks the grandiosity of overly serious genre with a torrent of heightened tropes, physical comedy, and ridiculously smart wordplay.

Unserious periods, it seems, create an appetite for knowingly unserious, gag-packed, refreshingly shallow entertainment.

A Recent Addition in This Goofy Trend

The most recent of these goofy parodies arrives as Fackham Hall, a parody of Downton Abbey that needles the easily mockable pretensions of gilded UK historical series. Penned in part by UK-Irish comic Jimmy Carr and helmed by Jim O'Hanlon, the film has a wealth of material to work with and uses all of it.

From a ridiculous beginning all the way to its ludicrous finish, this enjoyable aristocratic caper fills all of its 97 minutes with gags and sketches that vary from the puerile up to the authentically hilarious.

A Pastiche of Aristocrats and Servants

Similar to Downton, Fackham Hall delivers a pastiche of overly dignified the nobility and excessively servile servants. The narrative centers on the incompetent Lord Davenport (portrayed by an enjoyably affected Damian Lewis) and his anti-reading wife, Lady Davenport (Katherine Waterston). After losing their male heirs in a series of calamitous events, their plans fall upon marrying off their daughters.

One daughter, Poppy (Emma Laird), has achieved the family goal of betrothal to the appropriate close relative, Archibald (a wonderfully unctuous Tom Felton). However once she backs out, the onus transfers to the unattached elder sister, Rose (Thomasin McKenzie), described as a spinster of a woman" and who harbors radically progressive notions regarding female autonomy.

Its Comedy Works Best

The spoof is significantly more successful when joking about the suffocating norms forced upon Edwardian-era females – a topic often mined for earnest storytelling. The stereotype of idealized femininity offers the richest comic targets.

The storyline, as befitting a deliberately silly parody, is of lesser importance to the bits. Carr delivers them maintaining a consistently comedic pace. Included is a murder, a bungled inquiry, and a star-crossed attraction involving the plucky thief Eric Noone (Ben Radcliffe) and Rose.

The Constraints of Frivolous Amusement

The entire affair is in the spirit of playful comedy, though that itself has limitations. The dialed-up foolishness characteristic of the genre may tire after a while, and the comic fuel on this particular variety runs out somewhere between sketch and a full-length film.

At a certain point, audiences could long to retreat to a realm of (at least a modicum of) reason. Yet, one must applaud a genuine dedication to the artform. If we're going to distract ourselves to death, let's at least find the humor in it.