{"id":250,"date":"2021-10-01T15:10:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-01T15:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magnifycopy.co.uk\/blog\/?p=250"},"modified":"2021-10-29T15:11:52","modified_gmt":"2021-10-29T15:11:52","slug":"why-detectorists-is-the-englishness-we-could-all-do-with-a-bit-more-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magnifycopy.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2021\/10\/01\/why-detectorists-is-the-englishness-we-could-all-do-with-a-bit-more-of\/","title":{"rendered":"Why ‘Detectorists’ Is The Englishness We Could All Do With a Bit More Of"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WARNING: Contains spoilers<\/strong>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First broadcast in 2014, Mackenzie Crook\u2019s gentle comedy ran for three seasons.  It won two BAFTAs and inspired a loyal cult following<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is Detectorists so good?<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Detectorists was so subtle, I missed the point at first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My dad\u2019s TV recommendations don\u2019t always thrill me. Lupin? Bang on. Spiral? Sorry, Dad, couldn\u2019t get through episode one. He loves his murder mysteries, whereas I\u2019m more in the sci-fi camp with my mum. If he tells me about a show more than three times, I feel obliged to at least check it out. Detectorists sounded fairly harmless, by his standards. Hopefully fewer dead prostitutes than his usual recommendations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laughs were promised. And they were there\u2026sort of. Not belly laughs.  I found myself gently snorting on two occasions.  To be honest, it reminded me of \u2018Last of the Summer Wine\u2019.  The scenery, the geeky camaraderie. All very British. \u201cDo you like it?\u201d, asked Emily as the credits rolled.  \u201cYeah, it\u2019s ok\u201d, I replied, commandeering the remote.  \u201cI think there\u2019s a new episode of \u2018Homeland\u2019 though.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fast forward to lockdown number two.  In the snowy depths of the grimmest January in living memory, laughs were in short supply.  Our frazzled nervous systems were no match for the horrors of the daily news. We needed something gentle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We committed to the Detectorists.  And slowly became entranced with a vision of Britishness that felt like coming home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much has been made of the technical aspects of Detectorists<\/strong>, and rightly so.  The cinematography of Jamie Cairney and Mattias Nyberg turns the raw ingredients of the Suffolk countryside into a visual banquet. When confronted with such rolling scenes of pastoral beauty, the desire of the show\u2019s main characters, Andy and Lance, to spend their every waking moment exploring the fields is understandable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Licensed under CC by 2.0<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The music of alt-folk singer-songwriter Johnny Flynn provides another hook to engage the senses, and provides strong evidence of some pretty bold production choices, behind the scenes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo, Johnny Flynn\u2019s doing the music.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAwesome!  Does that mean we\u2019ll have a soundtrack album for tie-in purposes?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, he\u2019s just doing one song.  We\u2019ll have the first four lines of that song, playing in every episode, over and over again, for three whole seasons.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh. Ok.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you ever needed evidence of why we still need programmes commissioned by the BBC, this musical choice should suffice. On a lesser show, this level of repetition would drive most viewers into paroxysms of irritation. Here the repetition works (in cahoots with the glorious visuals of the British countryside) to hypnotic and soothing effect. Mackenzie Crook described the song as \u2018almost another character in the show\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the show\u2019s greatest strength lies in Mackenzie Crook\u2019s writing. The Detectorists is a masterpiece of understatement, a heartfelt homage to the Great British Reserve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Understatement is classy.<\/strong> Understatement takes absence \u2013 of emphasis, of exposition, of drama \u2013 and turns it into an asset. It\u2019s the sly art of what\u2019s left unsaid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also rooted in the kind of psychology that underpins a lot of good educational practice. By leaving informational gaps, the audience is encouraged to make predictions and hypothesise about what happened. When their predictions are proved accurate, they enjoy the intellectual satisfaction of being proved right. This increases their investment in the show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are two key moments where we can see the extent to which \u2018Detectorists\u2019 is defined by understatement \u2013 the Africa trip and the Saxon gold. These are big plot points. They are crucial to the development of the central characters.  In any other programme, <\/em>they would be celebrated onscreen. We\u2019d see Andy and Becky at the airport, or Andy and Lance at the British Museum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, \u2018Detectorists\u2019 does the most British thing imaginable. It doesn\u2019t make a fuss. Life goes on. We pick up where we left off, back in the field. The excitement\u2019s over. We\u2019ve had a cup of tea. The life-changing events and glorious achievements are mentioned in passing, if at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was confused, at first. Really? That\u2019s it? No African adventure? No earth-shattering historical revelations? Conditioned by cliff-hangers and the crash-bang-wallop of US dramas, I felt a bit cheated. Why weren\u2019t they showing me the good stuff?<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Because it\u2019s the Detectorists, that\u2019s why. It\u2019s a programme about blokes in a nice field, digging up ring pulls. That\u2019s the good stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The discovery of the Saxon gold is treated for what it is \u2013 a really lucky thing that happened. Andy and Lance don\u2019t suddenly become detectorist superstars or celebrities. They just keep digging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Toby Jones | Rob Young | Flickr | Licensed under CC by 2.0<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Once you start to realise how integral understatement is to \u2018Detectorists\u2019, you can see why the whole thing hangs together so perfectly. Nowhere is this understatement better personified than Varde, the taciturn detectorist who speaks once in the entire show, only to be interrupted by Terry, the leader of the Detectorists\u2019 unobtrusively diverse Danebury Metal Detecting Club. In keeping with the continual references by club members to Varde\u2019s (allegedly) chatty disposition, Terry shuts her down with \u201cAlright Varde, let someone else get a word in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mackenzie Crook acknowledged his debt to an older, gentler British culture in interviews, paying tribute to the sitcoms of the 1970s and 80s. \u201cThey were very uncynical and there was no cruelty in them, and I was sort of hearkening back to them. I wanted to see if a sitcom could be done without this awkward, painful humour that is so prevalent these days.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is Detectorists coming back?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It could well be. Despite a fairly hectic schedule full of blockbuster movies and Worzel Gummidge reboots, Crook confessed his desire to rekindle the Detectorists on Zoe Ball\u2019s Radio 2 show in December, 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018It\u2019s true, I am kind of thinking of it but I don’t have any idea at the moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m just starting the process of thinking “Yeah, we should get the old band back together \u2013 one last time!”\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there another modern TV show that you think manages to capture these quintessential English qualities? Feel free to let me know in the comments below<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WARNING: Contains spoilers! First broadcast in 2014, Mackenzie Crook\u2019s gentle comedy ran for three seasons.  It won two BAFTAs and inspired a loyal cult following Why is Detectorists so good? The Detectorists was so subtle, I missed the point at first. My dad\u2019s TV recommendations don\u2019t always thrill me. Lupin? Bang on. Spiral? Sorry, Dad, …<\/p>\n

Why ‘Detectorists’ Is The Englishness We Could All Do With a Bit More Of<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[17,18],"class_list":["post-250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-interest","tag-detectorists","tag-englishness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magnifycopy.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magnifycopy.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magnifycopy.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magnifycopy.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magnifycopy.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/magnifycopy.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":256,"href":"https:\/\/magnifycopy.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250\/revisions\/256"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magnifycopy.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magnifycopy.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magnifycopy.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magnifycopy.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}