Toby Jones (II)

Interview: Catherine Zeta Jones and Toby Jones

The film version of Dad's Army has premiered in London. It stars Catherine Zeta Jones, as new character Rose Winters, and Toby Jones as Captain Mainwaring. Lizo Mzimba met up with both of them on the red carpet in Leicester Square.

Radio Times review

If there's one man who knows how to put on a show on Graham Norton's red sofa it's Will Smith. The Fresh Prince traditionally offers up a special surprise of a Friday night with Norton: a dance party reunion featuring Smith's former co-star Alfonso Ribeiro and our Graham doing "The Carlton" gained millions of views on YouTube.

He's in to talk about American football drama Concussion this time around, but with Ryan Reynolds discussing devious superhero flick Deadpool and Dad's Army reboot stars Catherine Zeta Jones and Toby Jones completing the line up, there's bound to be seriously explosive fun.

Without any fanfare or bluster, Mackenzie Crook's gentle, bucolic sitcom about a group of misfits searching for gold in the English countryside returned and quietly got on with the business of being the most exquisitely written and beautifully observed comedy of British TV. Of course, it's not really about the search for treasure, it's about finding value in lives and friendships and love and loss. Thankfully, it had both the script and the performances - from Crook himself as the amiable Andy, Toby Jones as his detectorist buddy Lance, and Rachel Stirling as Andy's long-suffering girlfriend Becky, to provide us with that in spades. Meanwhile the cinematography perfectly framed the ordinary in extraordinary ways and provided us with the sort of sitcom that you feel there should be more of. Heartwarming, poignant and, crucially, very, very funny indeed.

Radio Times review

Radio Times Top 40 TV Shows of 2015, #11:

BBC4 has brought Slow TV to the sitcom. And if anything, the second series of Mackenzie Crook's tale of Essex blokes who go metal detecting to dodge the demands of life was even slower and more lugubrious than the first. At times the comedy was so wispy it almost evaporated, but you'd gladly watch Crook and Toby Jones all day long as underachieving mates Andy and Lance, "coils to the soil" as their friendship and the new demands of parenthood played out against a backdrop of sunny fields. No comedy (or drama) captured the quirks and delusions of middle-aged men better.

This week we had the Christmas special of Detectorists. Not that there was anything particularly festive about the so-called Christmas Special and it could well have been set during any part of the year. Toby Jones' Lance was front and centre throughout the entire episode which followed on from his discovery of an ancient medieval artefact at the end of the last series. The rather charming opening sequence saw Lance visit his find in a London museum and attempt to get his photo taken by the display. This to me was the highlight of a rather average episode of Detectorists which saw Lance try to dispel the supposed 'Curse of the Gold' that had befallen him since his recent discovery. Lance believes he has been cursed due to the fact that he hasn't been able to find anything since the end of the last series while he's also experienced a string of bad luck. The one primary reason I found this episode of Detectorists fairly mediocre was due to the fact that Mackenzie Crook barely made an impression throughout. Crook's Andy just happened to pop back from Africa in time to see Lance's disastrous display at the DMDC however their scenes together were limited. Part of the joy of Detectorists are the scenes in which Lance and Andy talk rubbish to each other whilst out metal detecting. Additionally there was very little continuity between this special and the series with no mention of Lance's daughter or explanation given as to why Sophie was nowhere to be seen throughout. On the plus side I did like the fact that Jones had almost thirty minutes to take centre stage and deliver what I thought was a masterclass is in awkwardness. The scene in which he completely ruins things with a potential new love is squirm-inducing however their later moment together was rather sweetly realised. This led me to ponder whether there will be a third series of Detectorists or if Andy will stay in Africa while Lance will finally find happiness with a lady mechanic. I'm hoping it's the former as Detectorists has become one of my favourite sitcoms of the last couple of years and I've got my fingers crossed that it doesn't end with what I found to be a rather underwhelming offering.

Mackenzie Crook's sitcom is something of an outlier in the current TV climate - a perfectly understated show which, in keeping with its subject matter, ever so gently reveals its treasures (from script to performances to photography) to those patient enough to wait. And patience is a rare commodity these days. In this seasonal special, Lance (Toby Jones) has lost his detecting mojo, prompting Russell to believe he is cursed: can he find it again in time for Christmas?

Radio Times review

After the note-perfect ending to series two, it came as a surprise - but a lovely one - to discover that a standalone episode would light up the festive schedules. Lance, you'll remember, unearthed a major find, while Andy and Becky were all set for something similarly life-changing.

As we rejoin the lovable eccentrics of Danebury Metal Detecting Club, the wintry fields and furrows are proving barren indeed for Lance (Toby Jones), who's not even turning up the usual ring-pulls or "canslaw". Is there any more gold to be found in them thar hillocks?

Detectorists is so adept at cockle-warming that a winter episode is in many ways the ideal framework. Tantalisingly, Mackenzie Crook says, "We got to bring the story to London for some extra-special scenes." The show's ardent metalheads can't wait...

Detectorists, BBC Four's fine comedy, came to the conclusion of its second series in the only way possible, with Lance (Toby Jones) finally doing a "gold jig" after the discovery of the medieval trinket that has tantalised in the title sequence. After weeks of wandering field and hillside with their "coils to the soil", this was no more than he and his metal-detecting confidant Andy (Mackenzie Crook) deserved. Jones gives his grins away so sparingly it is well worth the half-hour wait to see his doleful features transformed. Detectorists remains the most likely winner of any "sitcom on an unlikely theme" award, but it works because of the unfailing Don Quixote meets Countryfile tone of Crook's script and direction. "Ambition's overrated," suggests Lance as he clambers over a stile - leaving Andy, with baby Stan papoosed, to struggle with yet another fatherly obstacle - but nevertheless keeps on digging up 1980s Fanta-can ring pulls in the hope of finding the Staffordshire hoard.

Appropriately enough, the long-awaited detectorists' rally - bringing together the Uxbridge Unearthers, the Letchworth Locaters and the Romford Recoverers - passed mostly without incident, except for the troubling appearance of a rogue detector, a "nighthawk - scum of the earth" at the dig site. Still, in among the sedimentary strata of English despond there are always nuggets of hope: Lance found common ground with his newly discovered daughter; Andy the reed-thin resolve to try a new life for size. "We are all looking for gold," is one of Lance's certainties. Another, eminently employable is "when in doubt dig it out".

When I heard the premise of Detectorists (BBC Four, Thursday) -- middle-aged blokes potter about the countryside obsessively looking for buried treasure -- I presumed we were in for a spot of easy satire where the author's message would be something like 'Get a life, you losers.' In the event, this tender, kindly show has portrayed its characters as almost heroically indifferent to modern social fashions and demands. (And I bet there are far more of such people about than we generally see on television -- except of course on Only Connect.)

This perspective was duly reflected in the real author's message that came on Thursday when Andy (Mackenzie Crook) worried aloud that he wasn't ambitious enough. 'No shame in that,' his friend Lance (Toby Jones) reassured him. 'Ambition's overrated. All these people reaching for the stars and striving to be the best. It looks exhausting.' Not coincidentally, Crook, who wrote and directed Detectorists, turned down the chance to be in Pirates of the Caribbean 5 so that he could make the show.

Now in its second series, Mackenzie Crook's slow-burn sitcom remains as ambling and amiable as its central characters, metal detectors Andy (Crook) and Lance (Toby Jones). The stakes are still strikingly small here, and moments of huge hilarity remain relatively rare, but the whole thing is warm and welcoming enough to compensate for those slight shortcomings. In short, it's the perfect fare for a Sunday afternoon.