Trevor Cooper

The 50 best TV shows of 2020: No 8 - This Country

The trials and tribulations of Kerry and Kurtan in a small Cotswold village will have you crying with laughter one moment and stunned with grief the next.

BingeWatch - This Country

The BBC mockumentary follows two cousins in a stagnating English village.

This Country review

This Country has, over its three series, been willing to cover issues of more seriousness.

Farewell to This Country, a modern-day masterpiece

Like so many great British series, This Country is quitting while it's ahead - but Sean O'Grady hopes this is not truly the end of the road for the Mucklowes.

TV: This Country - episode two, BBC Three/BBC One

Fears that award-winning mockumentary This Country might outstay its welcome and run out of steam by returning for a third series were quickly dispelled with last week's classic opener and the standard stays just as high for this second episode following life in a Cotswold village.

Review: This Country

BBC Three's sublime rural mockumentary This Country is back for what creators Daisy May Cooper and Charlie Cooper have said is its final series. When we last saw the Mucklowe cousins (played by the Cooper siblings) just over a year ago in 'The Aftermath', Kerry was finally coming to terms with the selfishness of her dad, whom she had always idolised, while Kurtan was struggling to cope with losing his job at the bowls club.

A day on the set of This Country

Sick of working odd jobs just to survive, Daisy May Cooper hounded production companies with a short sketch about Kerry, the lead character in the now critically acclaimed comedy. Sean O'Grady dusts off his acting skills and joins the actress and her brother on set.

This election satire promises to be so topical, it will only be written in the hours before it's broadcast.

Wherever they aim their comedy sights, it's certainly bound to liven up what's been a distinctly laugh-free election campaign.

What we do know is the show will be written by those clever bods Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin, who brought us Drop the Dead Donkey and Outnumbered. A ringing endorsement if ever there was one.

And it will star the likes of Hugh Dennis, Trevor Cooper, Sarah Hadland, Ben Miller and Hattie Morahan. So far, so good.

The trailer features the cast as confused, gormless politicians, all effectively scratching their heads and wondering what to say. So it's all looking rather authentic.

The five half-hour episodes, broadcast in the run up to the May 7 election, will intercut between the campaign buses of the four main parties - Conservative, Labour, Liberal ­Democrats and UKIP, who don't really need to be satirised.

On each bus, cameras follow the staff including analysts, interns, IT geeks, social media monitors, empathy consultants (seriously?) and even bus drivers as they deal with the latest crisis or drama. A crisis or drama that we will have only just heard about in real life.