‘Downton Abbey’ parody movie ‘Fackham Hall’ announced
A new spoof of Downton Abbey has revealed its cast.
Parodying traditional period dramas like Downton and Gosford Park, the movie will be titled Fackham Hall.
The project has been described as “in the tradition of classic joke-a-minute spoof comedies like the Naked Gun series and Airplane!”
Fackham Hall is the screenwriting feature debut of English comedian Jimmy Carr, who’s written the script with Patrick Carr and the Dawson Brothers, who wrote Netflix’s 2022 comedy The Bubble.
“The British Film Industry does two things very well – period drama and comedy,” said Jimmy Carr. “Now we didn’t have time to write two movies, so we’ve had to mash the genres together…
“I’m just slightly worried that if you say Fackham Hall in a posh English accent it might be misconstrued, hopefully that won’t be a problem.”
Filming is set to begin in the UK in early 2024, with director Jim O’Hanlon helming the project.
“Fackham Hall is that rarest of rare hen’s teeth – a genuinely funny, fiendishly clever period comedy which even on the page makes you snort your tea out of several orifices at once, whilst still making you care hugely for the young couple at the centre of all the madness,” said O’Hanlon.
The filmmaker previously directed the BBC’s 2009 adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma and last year’s festive comedy Your Christmas or Mine? for Amazon.
O’Hanlon also directed episodes of Catastrophe, Inside N0.9, Marcella, Shameless, and Charlie Brooker’s crime drama parody series A Touch of Cloth.
The first cast members to be confirmed for Fackham Hall are Hero Fiennes Tiffin (The Woman King), Thomasin McKenzie (Last Night in Soho), Emma Laird (Mayor of Kingstown), and Katherine Waterston (Fantastic Beasts).
Fiennes Tiffin is apparently playing “a new porter who embarks on an unlikely relationship with the youngest daughter of a prominent UK family,” played by McKenzie.
The synopsis also tells us that “rivalries are spilling over in the Davenport family, led by Lord and Lady Davenport (Waterston) as they also weather the epic failure of the wedding of their eldest daughter (Laird) to her caddish cousin.”
This sounds
Emma Laird can next been seen in Kenneth Branagh’s new Poirot movie A Haunting in Venice, which arrives in cinemas this week.
Watch the trailer for that here:
Harry Potter fans may recognise Hero Fiennes Tiffin as the young Tom Riddle in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
Fackham Hall is expected to arrive in cinemas in 2024.
It sounds like it could be a lot of fun, although our favourite Downton parody will always by this BBC charity spoof from 2011!
Raising money for Comic Relief, it featured the likes of Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley, Victoria Wood, Harry Enfield, and Olivia Colman.
The complete Downton Abbey box set is available on DVD on Amazon.