Mackenzie Crook

There's an oddly inviting melancholy to this new sitcom, written and directed by Mackenzie Crook, and starring him and Toby Jones as two unlikely friends with a mutual love of metal detecting. Despite an almost parodically dull premise - we join the pair on a series of unfruitful detecting jaunts - the careful performances and conscientious restraint of the script mean the world of metal detecting, hardwired with self-delusion and slowly corrosive hope as it is, soon reveals itself to be a poignant microcosm of life itself.

Radio Times review

"Ringpull... '83... Tizer." It's another disappointing discovery for metal detectorists Andy and Lance. And yet this new six-parter proves that a sitcom needn't be about Big Issues to work its magic.

When they're not buzzing around ploughed fields, or listening to lectures on buttons, this Poundland Time Team is optimistically plotting the future unearthing of a Saxon hoard. They're like a more likeable version of The Fast Show's nerdy Offroaders. Andy (Mackenzie Crook, who also writes and directs) is a cleaner in a long-term relationship with tolerant Becky (Rachael Stirling); his friend Lance (Toby Jones) is a forklifter taken advantage of by his ex, Mags (Lucy Benjamin).

Into their provincial world wanders history student Sophie - destined, you feel, to shake things up a bit. She's played by Aimée-Ffion Edwards, unrecognisable from her turn in Sky1's Walking and Talking.

Detectorists is low-key and rambling, but warm, richly observed and gorgeously filmed. Already it feels like a glittering comedy find.

Mackenzie Crook interview

Mackenzie Crook talks coin collecting, highbrow comedy and why he won't be back for The Office spin-off, Life on the Road.

Mackenzie Crook: 'I've had to learn to speak up'

Mackenzie Crook talks about Detectorists, his affectionate BBC Four sitcom which salutes the male hobby.

Mackenzie Crook on Detectorists

Whether or not you find the pastime interesting, the idea is intriguing. In the past few months, when telling people what I've been working on, the reaction has been strangely positive.

Mackenzie Crook unearths metal detector sitcom

Mackenzie Crook has now written and directed a BBC Four sitcom about metal detector enthusiasts, which was screened in Edinburgh on Monday.

Although BBC2 produced many landmark comedy series, The Office was notable for establishing a new genre - the mockumentary. Fictional, but filmed as if it were a fly-on-the-wall reality TV show, it was written by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant and gave us the grotesque (but inst­antly recognisable) character of David Brent, the socially awkward, yet self-important boss from hell presiding over a workplace in Slough which sucks the soul out of its employees. The Office reinvigorated the flagging British sitcom format. A touching blend of egotism, self-delusion and desperation, Brent is an incredible comic creation, but the show's other characters: Tim (Martin Freeman), who is all-too aware of the pointlessness of his work; Gareth (Mackenzie Crook), the self-inflated assistant regi­onal manager and the butt of Tim's jokes; and Dawn - the secretary with the fit but selfish boyfriend - were all beautifully drawn. It was the first British comedy to win a Golden Globe.

The gently eccentric seaside comedy returns for another stroll along the prom at Weston-super-Mare, stopping off for rock cakes and merry banter at the social hub that is Carol's café. Morris dancers, living statues and musician Richard's slow-burning pash for reluctant small-town girl Sarah (Ralf Little and Michelle Terry as the reticent lovebirds) are on the saucy postcards, the plot stirred up by the arrival of Robert Glenister (Hustle) and Mackenzie Crook (The Office) as surprising new characters.