“The British aristocracy keeps calm and carries on.” Over the last six or seven decades, homegrown filmmakers have gravitated towards a mind-set that the U.K.—or, rather, England—is headed for wrack and ruin without a constant churn of seriously minded films which emphasise that those that serve should know their place; subservient, that is, to those that inherit. High time for a bracing new comedy to skewer the British-country-house caper and pour down a rain of irreverence on the whole tedious parade.
“Fackham Hall” (Bleecher St), showing now at the Montrose Playhouse, gets struck in from the first minutes with the wording of an inscription above the stately home’s front gate, “Incestus ad Infinitum,” and a shot immediately afterwards tracking along a row of bells of the kind used to summon servants, one of which has a particularly suggestive label. The Davenports, who inherited the house along with their titles, scrupulously “lived a decadent life of unbelievable luxury and never had to lift a finger.” Fackham Hall is a multi-winged, high-ceilinged, fussily kitted-out establishment with perhaps a hundred windows and a sign at the rear saying “servants entrance” with an arrow pointing downwards into the basement. Most of the scenes are shot in the drawing room, Lord Davenport’s formal study, or the kitchen downstairs. The production design is scrupulous enough—from the oil paintings on the walls, to the secret cash drawer in the desk, to the implements on the kitchen table—to jolt a memory cascade in the audience of a specific film which has a remarkably similar set-up.
Our hero is “a charming young pickpocket called Eric,” with the surname Noone (“pronounced ‘no-one’”), played—with exactly the right amount of sparkle in his eye—by Ben Radcliffe. For a time he lived in an nun-supervised orphanage which has been “recycling children since 1808.” The plot comprises of his appearance at Fackham Hall, his employment as a servant because of a case of mistaken identity, a wedding between first cousins where the groom is jilted at the altar, and then a murder solved by a detective with a prominent moustache.
Even this hundred-word summary clearly prods the memory towards the numerous previous incarnations of all these characters in British film-and-television output. It would be too slick for a reviewer to list all of these, as if suggesting to the reader some sort of memory test which will be marked afterwards. But that the second act launches with a murder, and that a detective looking like Hercule Poirot shows up at the door made me laugh out loud.
While the subject of the comedy is England, the style is predominantly American. The filmmakers modelled the script on the earlier “Airplane” and “Naked Gun” films whose humour they like. They intelligently play around with double meanings of words and phrases, are fond of half sentences with the emphasis on the wrong syllables, and introduce many shots in which a great deal goes on in the background. Much of the dialog is straight out of the “Naked Gun” playbook. Eric introduces himself the first time he meets Rose: “Nice to make your acquaintance. Eric,” he says. “It’s Rose, actually,” Rose replies. And later on, an old friend of Lord Davenport’s is asked where they had met: “You fought in the trenches?” “No, we were on the same side.” (I almost expected “And stop calling me Shirley” from “Airplane.”) That said, a regular routine of “The Two Ronnies” is repurposed at one point as Lord Davenport entertains his guests with an extremely bawdy song from the piano.
Eric gets the job at Fackham Hall as the hall boy, “The lowest ranked member of staff.” His new boss is Mrs McAllister, played by Anna Maxwell Martin, one of the standout parts. She purses her lips and sneers and explains things to Eric as if he is completely thick. One incredibly inventive sequence—where she defines basic words at him, saying, “The floor is the bottom surface of a room,” and, “A wall is like a floor only sideways,”—is outstanding. And later on, Rose asks Eric “You read?” with the most horrified tone (much fun is made of the name of Balzac,the French author). And when the detective arrives, he says, “I’m here for the murder of Humphrey (Lord) Davenport.” “You’re too late,” the butler replies. “Someone’s already done it.” Then, when announced to the assembled household by his surname, Watt, there is a predictable—but nonetheless hilarious—series of lines. “This is Inspector Watt,” the butler says. “Well how do I know…”
The accompanying score is really excellent and light enough to bring on a broad smile. When Eric appears, for instance, a triple-time um-cha-cha tune emphasises his feathery touch when lifting watches or wallets on the streets of London. It is gentle and it is clever and it is funny. And the decision to set the film in the autumn makes for some excellent outside shots of the English countryside—leaves on the ground and autumnal colours.
“Fackham Hall” is for a mature audience. It is more risqué than its American-cinematic cousins, tending to choose as its objects a combination of genitals and bottoms and sex. The filmmakers believe that they need to commit to an arms race of riskier lines to keep the laughs coming. Those who don’t particularly care for crude or sexually-charged humour will not like it. Still, other than “The Naked Gun,” nothing in 2025 has approached the frequency of gags, or the poking at an entire genre of movie, or the style of slapstick comedy on display; it is as fresh as a dip off the Montrose beach to celebrate the new year.
One theme that weaves in and out is the subordinate position of women in the British upper classes. “Do you think I married your father out of love?” Lady Davenport asks her daughter. “I married him out of duty.” Looking up, Lord Davenport says, “And we couldn’t be happier!”
Adam Poole
25th December 2025
If you are interested in viewing this screening, please book your tickets here
