Have I struck TV GOLD?
The Office’s gormless Gareth hopes his new sitcom will convert us all into fans of his secret hobby . . . metal detecting
ANy hobby or interest that’s not sport-related is always portrayed on TV as something for sad and lonely people. If you’re not into football, the thinking goes, you must be an anorak with no social skills. yet millions of us immerse ourselves in specialised pastimes that help us escape from the real world for a few hours every week: think fishing, motorcycling, stamp or coin-collecting.
Or metal detecting, which happens to be the subject of a six-part BBC sitcom I’ve written and directed, as well as taking one of the leading roles, alongside Toby Jones.
Whether or not you find the pastime interesting, the idea is intriguing. In the past few months, when telling people what I’ve been working on, the reaction has been strangely positive.
The most frequent response goes along the lines of: ‘Oh, my dad used to have a metal detector! It’s probably still in the garage. He took us out with it a few times when we were kids. Never found anything, though.’
That strikes a chord with me. I’ve had a metal detector for years, but it’s what my wife calls my ‘imaginary hobby’. What she means is, I’ve got all the equipment and the know-how, but I hardly ever use it.
Over the years, a silver sixpence, a Georgian shoe-buckle and a musket ball are probably my best finds. They’re not going to make the British Museum but it was exciting to unearth them nevertheless.
The idea for the show came to me a few years ago after an episode of Time Team which featured two detectorists — as they call themselves. It got me thinking about this strange pastime: a lonely and contemplative one, mostly carried out in autumn and winter, trudging up and down bleak stubble fields, headphones on, staring at the ground.
We’ve all seen detectorists and wondered what they are looking for. Loose change? Or, more likely, treasure? Which is not as absurd as it may sound.
Throughout history, whenever the threat of invasion has loomed, those with something to lose have buried their wealth in the ground for safekeeping. Once the danger passed, their riches would be dug up again.
But sometimes those people would die before they had a chance to retrieve their treasure. Sometimes, no doubt, they forgot where they buried it.
And so those secret hoards of coins and jewellery lie forgotten in the ground for centuries — until a metal detectorist comes along and finds them.
It is one of these caches of treasure that Andy (that’s me) and Lance (Toby Jones) long to find in Detectorists — though more often than not they find only ring pulls and junk.
I had sat on the idea for a year NOT or so, mulling it over. Then I wrote a half-hour script.
long after, I got to work for the first time with Toby Jones. Over the years, Toby and I have been in half a dozen of the same films but never actually shared screen time until our blink-and-you’llmiss- i t cameo i n the l atest Muppet movie.
I’m sure that having his name attached went a l ong way towards the BBC’s decision to commission a six-part series, news of which came a few days after I arrived in Vancouver for a five-month stint on an American TV show, Almost Human. It turned out to be the ideal time to write the rest of the series.
As I wrote, I had such a clear vision of how the series should look and feel that it seemed only natural that I should direct it, too. But this was to be my first time directing, so I knew I had to gather a team around me that I could lean on and trust.
One early set-back was that the National Council for Metal Detecting apparently did not want to be associated with the show. It was disappointing, as I could have done with some of their members’ advice. It seems that someone had decided I am out to ri dicule the hobby, whereas nothing could be further from the truth.
For filming, we chose as our base the beautiful Suffolk market town of Framlingham, using several locations in town, plus fields of neighbouring farms.
I confess I found the first day of the shoot terrifying: suddenly, my vague idea of a comedy about metal detecting had become a reality and 50 people were waiting for me to start directing them.
On day two, it poured all day. So much of Detectorists is set outside that I was counting on good weather to get the beautiful shots that we wanted and make the shoot an enjoyable experience for everyone. Thankfully, it was one of very few bad weather days we had.
My character, Andy, is not a great talker. Toby’s character, Lance, is. Call it what you will — clever writing or laziness — but I had very little line learning to do. Toby had reams t o memorise. He despaired at the long speeches he had to make on a daily basis, while I occasionally interjected with a monosyllable.
It’s strange; at the beginning of an acti ng career you want as many lines to say as possible, but as the years go by you start looking for things to cut so you don’t have to say so much.
But Toby learned every word and delivered them brilliantly. His character seems like a bit of an idiot at first, but you soon find out that he is a very wise and thoughtful man.
It doesn’t matter what size the budget on a film or TV show, you will always try to get as much out of the money as you can, so you’re always right on the edge of what you can afford. And so it was with our relatively tight budget.
In the very first draft of the pilot episode, I had written a gag involving a flypast by the Red Arrows. The executives loved that one — but it was going to be expensive. How were we intending to get that shot?
Well, we got it. I won’t say how, but the Red Arrows moment is one of my favourites.
I also wrote in the script that Lance drives a yellow Triumph TR7. I assumed that I would have to compromise on this one.
But Sam Harley, our designer, f ound a 1977 yellow TR7 in pristine condition . . . and it was cheaper to buy it than hire it for the duration of the shoot.
This left t he problem of what would happen to it after we finished. I bought it. I told my wife that I had to safeguard it in case we were commissioned for a second series. So now I have a TR7 in a colour that could only be described as ‘yellow’.
If we do get another series, I might write in that Andy flies a helicopter a bit like Blue Thunder. So what kind of programme is this ? A sitcom? A comedy drama? A romantic comedy? To be honest, I’m not sure. I only know I’m pleased with it.
It’s a love song to the British countryside, to people, and their passions and pastimes. There’s some swearing, like in real life, but no celebrities or car chases, like in real life. Lots of birdsong. A frog. A yellow TR7.
I’ve been allowed to make the television show that I would want to watch. I hope you want to watch it, too.
Detectorists begins on BBc4 next thursday, at 10pm.