Fackham Hall (15, 97 mins)
Verdict: Cack-handed spoof
To the list of great cinematic spoofs such as Airplane! (1980) and This Spinal Tap (1984), we can comfortably NOT add Fackham Hall, which tries to lampoon Downton Abbey, just as those two classics did disaster movies and rock documentaries.
Goodness knows, Downton is ripe for a mickey-take. But alas, Jim O’Hanlon’s film, conceived and co-written by comedian Jimmy Carr, resounds with the dull thud-thud-thud of relentless visual gags and one-liners falling flat.
It’s a shame, because a decent cast includes Damian Lewis, Thomasin McKenzie, Sue Johnston and Anna Maxwell Martin. They all do their best, even with some scatological comedy that would embarrass most self-respecting eight-year-olds.
I don’t like your manor: Downton Abbey was ripe for a send-up. But this is not it
Fackham Hall makes Ronnie Barker’s idiotic country-house parody Futtocks End (1970) look like a model of sophisticated restraint.
The stately pile of the title belongs to the aristocratic Davenport family (motto: ‘incestus ad infinitum’).
It’s 1931, and Lord and Lady Davenport (Lewis, and Katherine Waterston) have lost four sons to various tragedies, so must now rely on one of their two daughters marrying a cousin (Tom Felton), if they are to hold on to the ancestral home.
Aim, fire: A shooting party (and pretty much everything else) goes wrong in Fackham Hall
Upper class twits: A fine cast – including (l-r) Thomasin McKenzie, Katherine Waterston, Damian Lewis and Tom Felton – is wasted in Fackham Hall
At first they pin their hopes on Poppy (Emma Laird), but then turn to Rose (McKenzie), whose mother considers her, at 23, to be a ‘dried up husk of a woman’.
The odd joke raises a smile, even a laugh, and I did like Tim McMullan’s po-faced butler, Cyril.
But on the whole Fackham Hall, like a flatulent family retriever in the drawing-room, is best ignored.
Fackham Hall is in cinemas now.
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