Fackham Hall Review: Absurdly Funny Satire of Downton Abbey Is a Laugh a Second

Welcome back to the big studio comedy. Jim O’Hanlon’s Fackham Hall, a wildly funny, laugh-a-second satire in the vein of this year’s The Naked Gun, is a refreshing return to a style of physical, performance-based comedy woefully lacking in today’s market. Yes, a lot of the jokes here are tremendously stupid (complimentary), ripped from the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker machine which produced Airplane! and Top Secret, but O’Hanlon applies that timeless style to a subject long in need of a good roasting: the British aristocracy.

Written by standup comedian Jimmy Carr with brother Patrick, who produced his first screenplay here, Fackham Hall is so loaded with gags and in-jokes that it does exhaust itself, but only before picking up steam again in the film’s blistering final act. The main focus here is a Downton Abbey-like estate of the film’s title, which, said in a Cockney accent, sounds curiously like a certain expletive. The residents are the Davenports, who have occupied the Hall for 400 years but are now in trouble of losing their control over it; all four of Lord and Lady Davenport’s sons (Damien Lewis and Katherine Waterston, respectively), have died in four unrelated incidents. One was on the Titanic, one was on the Hindenburg, one died in a golf accident, and one from excessive masturbation.

Fackham Hall is a Dizzying Mix of Outré Humor and Stylish Design

It’s 1931, and the family is running out of options. In desperation, the Davenports prepare to marry off their elder daughter, Poppy (Emma Laird), to her first cousin, Archibald (Tom Felton) — an incestuous tradition, as evidenced by the family motto above the estate’s entryway, Incestus ad infinitum. At twenty-three years old, Poppy is considered an “old hag” — but she doesn’t love Archibald and so runs off, at the altar, with the rotund manure delivery man she has actually fallen for.

Meanwhile, Eric Noone (Ben Radcliffe), a dashing peasant, arrives with the promise to deliver a mysterious letter to Lord Davenport. While riding his bike into town, he is hit by the Davenport’s youngest child, Rose (Thomasin McKenzie, flexing some serious comedic chops), who has been escaping in a car. They immediately fall in love. Upon arriving at the estate, Eric is given a job as the lowly Hall Boy. As Rose and Eric continue their covert dalliance, her parents work tirelessly to get her and Archibald to fall in love instead.

The Carr’s have so loaded this thing up with puns, double entendres and ridiculous, who’s-on-first-style miscommunications that it is genuinely difficult to keep up. Some of those jokes are frustratingly repetitious; there are, for example, one too many literal poop jokes. But, overwhelmingly, the film works tremendously well. That is thanks in no small part to the commitment to the bit, as the film looks absolutely gorgeous and is tied together with exceptional period detail.

The Carrs and O’Hanlon are focusing their mockery on a certain brand of austerity that is so baked into the British upper crust where the most ridiculous instances of privilege go entirely unscrutinized.

There’s too much here, but, other than Downton Abbey, you’ll find references to Titanic, Inspector Clouseau, Bridgerton, Sherlock Holmes, and, yes — much of the work by Mel Brooks and the Zucker Brothers. For some reason, J.R.R. Tolkien is a character (Alex Butler), and the filmmakers have fun playing with the ridiculous biopic trope wherein an icon is seen as a nobody who quietly transforms into a legend.

The Carrs and O’Hanlon are focusing their mockery on a certain brand of austerity that is so baked into the British upper crust where the most ridiculous instances of privilege go entirely unscrutinized. To boot: Lord Davenport is so hoity-toity that he doesn’t even have to lift a finger. Literally. He has a footman act as his hands to bring a teacup to his mouth, or to scratch his chin as he ponders a quandary. A running joke in the film is that during especially serious conversations, whatever is happening in the background goes unnoticed. In an early scene, Rose and Lady Davenport argue about who cares more about her father; meanwhile, he is choking to death right next to them.

In similar fashion, the aristocratic characters are indulgent in the same, mostly normal behaviors of everyone else — they just prefer to keep it classy. The hypocrisy of the privileged few is a constant source of satire. People don’t poop, they “wrestle with a tricky dump.” In direct reference to the prevalence of romance-centric conversations which pervade these types of films, there are twin sisters who only talk about men. Their names: The Bechdel Sisters (get it?) Jimmy Carr himself plays a vicar who is either illiterate or else terrible at covering up his own perversity.

If Fackham Hall had come out in the 1970s, it would’ve been seen as blasphemous. In today’s age, it seems almost antiquated. Yet, in a time when most comedy films resort to endless quips and roasts, and where the actual comedy is relegated to the sidelines, it feels nice to go back in time in more ways than one. Theaters deserve more robust comedies like this. It’s frankly incredible to see such gorgeous production design undergird something so silly. Whether the Davenports can keep their home or not, it would be nice to stay inside this side-splitting, absurd romp for just a bit longer.

Fackham Hall opens in theaters on December 5th, 2025.