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Julian Barratt is eccentric Peter Toynbee (opposite). convincing siblings. “Helen has been deeply affected by her family falling apart,” explains Wokoma of her character. “She doesn’t go out a lot and Elton has to look after her. She makes her first friend in Richard – she has her YouTube channel for make-up tutorials for special effects, and because they’re both a bit isolated, they bond over that.”

“It’s very offbeat,” adds McDowell. “There’s not much out there like this. Simon and Nick are a unique pair – I’d wanted to work with them ever since I saw Shaun Of The Dead, so I was up for this. Richard and Gus have quite a sweet relationship – they’re both mourning Gus’ wife who died a few years earlier, and have found that quite difficult.”

A sense of poignancy underpins the series, with each character finding a sense of community in the peculiar

SIMON PEGG

little clan that forms around Gus – “a gang of idiots who are nice people with a weird hobby”, in Frost’s words. That weird hobby is convincingly evoked by placing Gus’ slightly shabby YouTube videos in the context of our ‘post-truth’ world, acknowledging the parallel rocketing levels of both credulity and scepticism.

“The YouTube era has meant all those sightings of UFOs and Nessie don’t mean shit,” concludes Pegg. “That gets us off the hook in terms of why the world isn’t embracing Gus and Elton’s discoveries. Surely if there was such a thing they’d have been captured in HD? Maybe they have been, but it’s all fake news so no one believes them…” Gabriel Tate

TRUTH SEEKERS STARTS ON 30 OCTOBER ON AMAZON PRIME VIDEO.