Fackham Hall review – Downton Abbey spoof is fast, funny and throwaway

Period drama parody has some decent and often smart gags and benefits from a game cast including Damian Lewis and Thomasin McKenzie Perhaps it’s the feeling of end times in the air: after years of inactivity, spoofs are making a comeback . This summer saw the resurgence of the lighthearted genre, which at its best sends up the pretensions of overly serious genre with a barrage of pitched cliches, sight gags and stupid-clever puns. The Naked Gun , starring Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson in a spoof of a buddy-cop spoof, opened to moderate box office success; the hapless rock band dialed it back up to 11 in Spinal Tap II: The End Continues . Reboots of the horror spoof gold-standard Scary Movie and the Mel Brooks Star Wars rip Spaceballs were greenlit, and there were rumors of a return for international man of mystery Austin Powers. Unserious times, it seems, beget appetite for knowingly unserious, joke-dense, refreshingly shallow fun. The latest of these goofy parodies, which premi...

James Dean auction offers unseen items showing new side to star

Nearly 400 items, including personal letters, provide insight into the life of the actor who died at the age of 24

It could only be him. James Dean is squinting and smiling, a cigarette hanging from his lip, and wearing a leather jacket and glove. The silver gelatin photo from a 1955 motorcycle session is a classic Hollywood portrait but it is also unique. It measures 13.5in x 10.25in and has an inscription, written with a dark blue ballpoint pen, from Dean to his agent Jane Deacy: “To Mom / My heart and thanks / Jim.”

The actor regarded “Lady Jane”, as Deacy was called, as a second mother because his biological mother, Mildred, died of uterine cancer when he was nine years old, and he was estranged from his stepmother.

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