Trust Mackenzie Crook to do it again. Since his BBC curio Detectorists concluded in 2017 (the 2022 Christmas special notwithstanding), it has achieved cult-like status: a comedy that excavated the profound from the prosaic, transforming muddy fields and failed treasure hunts into something more. Crook’s deft writing made his tale of two men and their metal detectors less a satire about hobbyists than a meditation on male friendship, thwarted dreams, and the quiet devastations of middle age. Expectations are high, then, for Small Prophets.
It doesn’t disappoint. Just as Detectorists found poetry in the Suffolk landscape and church halls, so Small Prophets discovers it in retail parks and overgrown suburban gardens – that same mournful melancholy punctured by moments of brilliant, absurdist humour. Even the music, haunting and ethereal, will twang its way into your soul.
