Small Prophets, BBC2/iPlayer
A hideous sight appears near the start of Mackenzie Crook’s new comedy, one even grislier than the opening titles of Question Time. It’s Crook himself, sporting what looks like an emaciated squirrel hitching a ride on his head, but is in fact a ponytail. Feel free to shudder.
While it is early doors, his character - DIY superstore manager Gordon - is already worthy of inclusion in the Crook pantheon alongside Gareth from The Office, Andy from Detectorists, and Worzel Gummidge.” And in bad news for headset-wearing supervisors everywhere, the phrase “Have you been on your break?” feels destined to catch on.
Gordon is not the main character in this tale of love and longing. That would be the aptly named Michael Sleep (Pearce Quigley, Detectorists), who has been in a waking slumber since his girlfriend, Clea, walked out one Christmas seven years ago and never returned. Michael now fills his days working at the superstore and visiting his dad, Brian (Michael Palin), who is busy raging against the dying of the light in a retirement home. Chief among his irritations are staff messing with his stuff and whoever is throwing sweets in the residents’ lounge.
Michael Palin in a retirement home, taking no nonsense - that alone would be worth the price of admission in any comedy. That he is just one part of a cast that also includes Paul Kaye (as Michael’s estranged brother) and rising stars Sophie Willan (Alma’s Not Normal) and Jon Pointing (Big Boys) as his neighbours, speaks to Crook’s reputation for funny, original, bewitching comedy that is never quite what it seems. In every Crook comedy, there’s a stewpot of ideas bubbling away for those who wish to partake. If not, no sweat, just enjoy the vibe, the music, the laughs.
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Here, as in Detectorists, there are people out to spoil Michael’s dull but reassuringly predictable existence with their demands. Chief among them is his brother, who wants to sell his sister’s house, leaving Michael homeless. It would also force him to face the reality that Clea was not coming back.
Still, there’s always his dad to stave off the encroaching gloom. To pass the time, Brian invents Wallace and Gromit-style contraptions. He loves puzzles and solving problems, even though that magpie mind of his is being lost to dementia. His latest conundrum: what happened to Clea?
Brian tells his son that if he wants to find his girlfriend, he must grow homunculi in jars. As you do. Brian is insistent that these tiny, human-like prophesying spirits - the small prophets of the title - will tell him what’s what. Easy-osey as ever, Michael goes along with the idea, thus giving the bloke next door something else to complain about.
As in his previous works, Crook’s comedy comes at you sideways rather than head-on, though there are laugh-out-loud moments too. Michael, teasing customers about tartan paint and the obsolescence of buckets, is a hero for our megastore times. But there’s an edge to him, as there is to Palin’s character, that’s intriguing. Anything might happen in Crook’s weird world. How wonderful is that?
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