Try not to be told about the central premise of Small Prophets, the new comedy by Detectorists writer/director Mackenzie Crook, before you dive in. In a show full of gorgeous surprises, the main thing that happens is the most precious gift waiting to be unwrapped. What you should know, though, is that this is everything a Detectorists fan would wish for in its creator’s new project: the same sensibilities take on phantasmagorical new shapes. Small Prophets is a pure, pure pleasure.
Our gentle hero is the lank-haired, long-bearded Michael (Pearce Quigley), the only occupant of an overgrown semi-detached at the dead end of a south Manchester cul-de-sac. His daily routine: waking from a strange dream about birds, coaxing his battered Ford Capri into life, driving to his boring job on the shop floor of a DIY superstore, popping to his dad’s nursing home for repetitive conversation, then returning to his silent house ready to do it all again tomorrow. It has been this way since Christmas Eve seven years ago, when his girlfriend, Clea, vanished. They found her car by the Severn Bridge, but they never found her.
