Fackham Hall

An absolutely perfectly pitched country house drama parody. Yes it’s all very silly but it made gentle fun of the genre not meanness or nastiness and it was clear that everyone involved was having a great time.

The Butler and Housekeeper played their parts to perfection and had some great lines (“I don’t sleep, I find it interferes with my duties”) and every scene was packed with detail — as well as the obvious centre stage farce there was a great deal of quite subtle background humour that would reward re-watching. Sometimes looking away for a fraction of a second would cause you to miss a clever reference and even when I was paying attention I’m sure that there are things that I missed.

In addition to the main boy meets girl plot (boy is not appropriate, plan to run away etc.) there’s a murder (this is a country house after all). And the murder plot is actually plausible within the story and very satisfyingly handles it, just as if this were a straight whodunnit.

So a movie that packed a huge amount into its ninety minutes — almost constant jokes, slapstick humour, broad parody, a love story and a murder mystery. Well worth watching. You could even re-enact much of it in stop-motion animation using the Lego Downton Abbey set due for imminent release!