Detectorists returns to unearth more comic gold
For a worrying moment at the start of Detectorists (BBC Four), I thought I was watching The Apprentice on BBC One by mistake. There was a helicopter shot of the shiny London skyline, before the camera cut to a grey-suited, gimleteyed estate agent type, striding purposefully down a corporate corridor. Was he about to be fired by finger-pointing Lord Sugar?
Thankfully, this was just a prelude to our usual metal-detecting mirth. We briefly visited the HQ of “Photon Harvest Solar Electricity”, who planned to build England’s thirdlargest solar power farm near the tranquil town of Danebury, where our amateur archaeologist heroes ply their loot-hunting trade. There may be trouble ahead.
Written by, directed by and starring Mackenzie Crook (the sparrow-faced jobsworth Gareth in The Office), this quiet sitcom gem has been a slowburning hit: breaking BBC Four ratings records and deservedly winning a Bafta. It’s been off-air for two years, hence why this third series was feverishly awaited by fans.
As we returned to the sun-dappled, soothingly somnambulant East Anglian countryside, Andy (Crook) was living with his waspish mother-inlaw (the mighty Diana Rigg). He longed for space of his own to potter and tinker: “Who said ‘Any man past the age of 30 without a shed can consider himself a failure’? Titchmarsh, probably.” Andy took up vaping, just to stand alone in the garden for 10 minutes.
A few streets away, the “sad bachelor pad” bliss of Lance (Toby Jones) had been shattered by his teenage daughter. Both friends felt domestically trapped. As ever, their hobby was their escape: bumbling around fields in search of buried booty, punctuated by philosophical chats over sandwiches and a Thermos. They pondered who they’d invite to a fantasy dinner party (not Stephen Fry or Jesus – they’re inundated with imaginary invites). They sniggered at schoolboy innuendos about “moist conditions”, “getting your tool in” and “deep penetration”.
The episode signed off with an oddly affecting time-lapse sequence, showing the trinkets they missed by mere metres being buried by Saxons, set to a haunting pastoral soundtrack by folk sisters The Unthanks.
The naturalistic writing captured conversational rhythms, and the performances were all nicely restrained. The comic chemistry between Jones and Crook was a bittersweet delight: communicated via deadpan exchanges and expressive faces, their bond recalled Porridge’s Fletch and Godber, or Terry and Bob in The Likely Lads – long-suffering but inseparable, bickering but affectionate. This was a note-perfect, wistful and warm-hearted portrayal of male friendship.
It’s almost compulsory in Detectorists reviews to say the show unearthed comic gold. Indeed it did. If you’re yet to join the DMDC (Danebury Metal Detecting Club), treat yourself. Treasures await.
‘Oh, it’s you!” The GP’S receptionist in cosy comedy drama Doc Martin (ITV) spoke for us all when she glanced up to be confronted by film star Sigourney Weaver in the waiting room of a quaint Cornish surgery.
Weaver was reprising her 2015 cameo as an American tourist who had now returned to the picturesque village of Portwenn to research her family tree. Naturally, she also had a health emergency for the eponymous doctor (Martin Clunes) to miraculously cure.
Yet the arrival of the Alien actress in an unflattering anorak was merely a sub-plot to the main business of this series finale. Having fainted at the sight of blood and collapsed on top of a patient (bringing a new meaning to “under the doctor”), haemophobic Martin faced a disciplinary hearing to decide his future.
His career prospects didn’t look good. Via a string of implausible contrivances, though – a local potter’s embolism, a backfiring home remedy, an idiotic policeman – Martin performed a limb-saving, bloodspattered op right there in the hearing. It was a surgical marvel, even if he did promptly vomit into the fireplace.
Happy endings all round, then. Weaver – who gave a bizarrely flat, unfunny performance as an annoyingly nosy lady with a gammy leg – could even return to the US with a souvenir box of Cornish fudge.
This ever-popular, televisual equivalent of a hot water bottle returns for a ninth and final series next year. It’s so gentle that it could end by simply nodding off.