Fackham Hall (15)

Lord Davenport has no male heir to inherit the eponymous country pile so with the blessing of Lady Davenport, he plots to keep the estate in the family by marrying daughter Poppy to cousin Archibald. Their other child Rose watches the unfolding drama, knowing the likely repercussions if Poppy fails to say "I do" and incurs the wrath of Great Aunt Bonaparte. Meanwhile, Eric Noone infiltrates the household under false pretences and catches Rose's eye, setting himself up to become an heir.

LondonNet Film Review

Fackham Hall (15) Film Review from LondonNet

If Frank Drebin from the Naked Gun series magically time-travelled back to 1931 and blundered through the beautifully appointed halls of Downton Abbey, the resulting blitzkrieg of uproarious visual gags, puns, malapropisms and misunderstandings would be considerably funnier than Fackham Hall. Credited to five screenwriters including Jimmy Carr and his brother Patrick, director Jim O’Hanlon’s potty-mouthed spoof of chocolate-box period dramas is, alas, proof that tumbleweed did exist in England…

Lord Davenport (Damian Lewis) has no surviving male heir to inherit the most lavish hall in all of Shropcestershire, which has been in the family for more than 400 years: motto – Incestus Ad Infinitum. His four sons, John, Paul, George and little Ringo met untimely ends and the prospect of a woman taking charge of the eponymous country pile is too much for stiff upper lips to bear. With the blessing of Lady Davenport (Katherine Waterston), the master of the house plots to keep the estate in the family by marrying daughter Poppy (Emma Laird) to her odious first cousin, Archibald (Tom Felton). Their other child Rose (Thomasin McKenzie) protests that her sister should marry for love, not financial benefit.

Rose follows her heart and falls under the spell of the newest addition to the downstairs staff, Eric Noone (Ben Radcliffe), an orphan pickpocket who has infiltrated the household under false pretences and reciprocates Rose’s feelings, positioning himself as a potential heir. As relationships falter and Poppy openly questions the potential repercussions for her kin (“We’re aristocracy. Surely laws do not apply to us!”) the local vicar (Jimmy Carr) musters a sermon full of wisdom and insight and Great Aunt Bonaparte (Sue Johnston) purses her disapproving lips on the sidelines.

Fackham Hall has the potential to be rollicking, irreverent fun but punchlines repeatedly face-plant and a scattershot script runs the gamut of bestiality, noxious flatulence and self-pleasure in search of just one body-shaking laugh. The ensemble cast are visibly working hard to spin gold from straw, particularly Radcliffe and McKenzie, who lean heavily into the sweet innocence of their characters’ all-consuming attraction.

A couple of outlandish sight gags work – a human bike rack, a stag falling from the sky onto a manservant, rather than a pheasant, when a shooting party goes rogue – but that’s a disappointingly meagre return for more than 90 minutes of screen time. Humour is consistently raunchy with a liberal sprinkling of profanities across the class divide. An Agatha Christie-style murder mystery replete with an outrageously moustachioed detective (Tom Goodman-Hill) and a grand reveal of a killer’s identity is thrown casually into the mix of upstairs-downstairs intrigue and gooey romance.

– Jo Planter