Detectorists

Mackenzie Crook: my family values

The Detectorists actor talks about his solid, loving start to life and taking his children camping to interest them in the natural world.

We loved this charming comedy from Mackenzie Crook last year, and were absolutely delighted that BBC Four stuck with it for a second series. It's a rare gem of a comedy filled with likeable characters who just want to root for and spend time with. The second series saw Andy become and father and Lance discover he had a daughter! It was just superb. We can't praise Detectorists enough. Let's just hope the Christmas Special is as good as we hope!

Detectorists series two box set review

Gentle, touching, well-observed humour and loving aerial shots of rural Essex: life is sweetly poignant for Andy and Lance of the Danebury Metal Detecting Club.

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".

What a great show this has been; its late summer vibes, subtle wisdom and inklings of melancholy making it a Nick Drake among sitcoms. As the series closes, Lance, Andy et al have reason to be optimistic. Lance has confined himself to leaving a mere eight messages for his daughter Kate, and Peter the "nighthawk" looks to have been vanquished. All comes to a head at the club rally, but quietly spectacular ensemble performances (especially from Sophie Thompson as Sheila) create a perfectly pitched tone throughout.

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.

BBC wants more Detectorists, but Crook's not sure

The BBC is understood to have offered creator and star Mackenzie Crook a third run of the BBC Four metal detecting comedy, but he is yet to make up his mind, RadioTimes.com can reveal.

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.

In which we find out whether Andy got the Botswana job or not - the result of which must be a sign, he thinks. (Lance: "There's no such thing as 'signs'." Andy: "There are when you want them to be.") Meanwhile, Terry calls an emergency meeting about Peter: is our German visitor really a filthy, gold-plundering "nighthawk"? The Danebury Metal Detecting Club elects to set up a sting operation in the early hours, but can they stay awake long enough to catch the Dirt Sharks and co red-handed?