Fackham Hall – A Brisk, Funny Parody of Downton Abbey That's Pleasantly Lightweight.
It could be the feeling of uncertain days in the air: following a long period of quiet, the parody is making a return. This summer witnessed the rebirth of this playful category, which, when done well, mocks the self-importance of pompously earnest genre with a barrage of exaggerated stereotypes, visual jokes, and ridiculously smart wordplay.
Unserious times, it seems, create an appetite for deliberately shallow, laugh-filled, refreshingly shallow entertainment.
The Latest Entry in This Absurd Resurgence
The most recent of these goofy parodies is Fackham Hall, a parody of Downton Abbey that pokes fun at the highly satirizable self-importance of opulent English costume epics. Penned in part by British-Irish comedian Jimmy Carr and overseen by Jim O'Hanlon, the feature has plenty of inspiration to mine and exploits every bit of it.
Starting with a absurd opening to a outrageous finale, this entertaining upper-class adventure crams each of its hour and a half with gags and sketches that vary from the childish to the genuinely funny.
A Send-Up of The Gentry and Staff
In the vein of Downton, Fackham Hall presents a spoof of overly dignified rich people and overly fawning servants. The plot focuses on the hapless Lord Davenport (played by a delightfully mannered Damian Lewis) and his anti-reading wife, Lady Davenport (Katherine Waterston). Having lost their four sons in a series of tragic accidents, their hopes are pinned on securing unions for their two girls.
One daughter, Poppy (Emma Laird), has secured the aristocratic objective of betrothal to the appropriate kinsman, Archibald (a perfectly smarmy Tom Felton). But when she backs out, the burden falls upon the unattached elder sister, Rose (Thomasin McKenzie), considered a spinster at 23 and and possesses unladylike beliefs concerning women's independence.
Its Comedy Succeeds
The parody is significantly more successful when joking about the oppressive expectations forced upon pre-war females – a topic often mined for earnest storytelling. The trope of respectable, enviable womanhood offers the best punching bags.
The plot, as one would expect from a purposefully absurd spoof, takes a back seat to the gags. The writer delivers them coming at a pleasantly funny clip. Included is a murder, a farcical probe, and a star-crossed attraction between the plucky thief Eric Noone (Ben Radcliffe) and Rose.
The Constraints of Lighthearted Fun
Everything is in the spirit of playful comedy, but that very quality imposes restrictions. The dialed-up silliness inherent to parody may tire over time, and the entertainment value for this specific type runs out somewhere between sketch and a full-length film.
After a while, audiences could long to return to a realm of (at least a modicum of) logic. Nevertheless, you have to applaud a wholehearted devotion to the craft. If we're going to entertain ourselves relentlessly, it's preferable to laugh at it.
