Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
WORZEL’S A NATURAL WONDER
A hit last Christmas, Mackenzie Crook’s Worzel Gummidge is back for another wild adventure
Not only did they delight children with their magical, mystical tales, but they stirred grown-ups’ emotions too as celebrations of the glorious British countryside. Mackenzie Crook’s double bill of Worzel Gummidge films on BBC1, inspired by Barbara Euphan Todd’s children’s books about an eccentric talking scarecrow, were two of the TV hits of last Christmas – so no wonder The Office star and creator of the drama Detectorists is back with a follow-up this year.
‘I think Worzel was an evolution, as Detectorists is very rooted in the English landscape,’ says Mackenzie, 49. ‘We hinted at myths and folklore in Detectorists, whereas in Worzel Gummidge I’m able to do that more obviously. It’s very much a passion project.’
And he has roped in some of our most prominent actors to join irascible Worzel on his latest adventure, in which he visits a scrapyard with his friends Susan (India Brown) and John (Thierry Wickens). ‘They find Saucy Nancy, a carved ship’s figurehead, languishing there, so they decide to take her back to the seaside for a day trip. It’s a road trip with mishaps along the way.
‘Shirley Henderson plays Saucy Nancy and Vanessa Redgrave is Peg, an old woman who mends fishermen’s nets. Then there’s Brian Blessed. I wanted someone with a big voice so we went for the biggest we could think of. Brian voices a tiny scarecrow, Abraham Longshanks, who used to be a giant but has had so many parts replaced he’s ended up really small but still with a giant’s voice.’
Since finding fame in Ricky Gervais’s sitcom The Office in 2001, Mackenzie has had much success as an actor, writer and director. He’s been in three Pirates Of The Caribbean films and Game Of Thrones, and won two BAFTAS for Detectorists, which he wrote, directed and starred in. He also
wowed audiences in Jerusalem, Jez Butterworth’s hit play about the myth and lore of rural England.
This theme has been at the heart of his work since. Worzel is a guardian of nature, fighting to keep the seasons as they should be and to prevent an endless summer. The tattoos of birds and insects on Mackenzie’s arms are a window into this passion, which began in childhood. He grew up ‘on the edge of the countryside’ near Dartford in Kent, where he recalls lots of bike rides and fishing trips. ‘I had quite an idyllic childhood,’ he recalls. ‘Now a bird can’t fly across my path that I can’t identify. It’s the same with flowers.’
While writing, Mackenzie created dozens of drawings of Worzel in an old red military coat with a robin in his pocket where his heart should be, and that has become one of the show’s most memorable images. And just like in the films, Mackenzie also has a robin, not in his jacket, but often on his hand or head at the home he shares in north London with his wife Lindsay and their son Jude, 17, and daughter Scout, 12.
‘Winter George is a tame robin who trusts me to feed him from my hand. He’ll come into the house and sit on my shoulder when I’m cooking, demanding worms. We have an incredible relationship because somehow he recognises me, so when I opened the books and found Worzel had this tame robin I thought, “It’s meant to be!”’
Last year’s two Worzels, The Scarecrow Of Scatterbrook and The Green Man, received glowing praise from viewers and critics. ‘They were designed to be watched by a family together,’ says Mackenzie. ‘Hopefully this year it’ll be the same. And without wanting to overstate it, the message in there is to show the British countryside in all its glory and hopefully to get people out there, appreciating the natural world.’
Lisa Sewards Worzel Gummidge: Saucy Nancy, Christmas Eve, 5.55pm, BBC1.