Fackham Hall looks like a typical period British drama—at least until you say the title quickly, and with a slight cockney accent. (We will wait for you to do this. Get the joke?)

Following in the footsteps of Airplane! or this summer’s successful Naked Gun reboot , the new film starring Thomasin McKenzie, Damian Lewis, Tom Felton, Katherine Waterston, and a great many others in uncomfortable costumes is a gag-a-minute comic tidal wave. There are idiotic puns, pratfalls, finely tuned moments of metahumor, silly musical numbers, and enough instances of released natural gas to power a city. At a time of year when most theatrical releases are desperately serious, an idiotic farce may be just what the butler ordered.

Though Fackham Hall isn’t a direct parody of Downton Abbey, di

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