Small Prophets: Season 1

Michael Sleep is a middle-aged man living alone in his girlfriend's house, seven years after she went missing. With a dead-end job and having to support his elderly, confused father in an old person's home, Sleep's life is on autopilot. When his girlfriend's brother starts legal proceedings to have her legally declared dead so he can inherit the house, Sleep faces homelessness and hopelessness. But one of his father's stranger notions turns out to be more than a passing fancy, and Sleep suddenly finds himself the custodian of three...guests, who may be able to answer the questions about his missing girlfriend.

Whilst his bigger-named co-stars from The Office went on to host multiple Netflix comedy specials or star in the Hobbit movies, Mackenzie Crook chose the path of building a career based on steady work as a reliable performer. After providing able support in three Pirates of the Caribbean movies as Ragetti, Crook picked up the short-lived but memorable role of Orell on Game of Thrones and established himself as a regular supporting actor in both comedy and drama.

In 2014 Crook made the transition to writing, directing and show-running as the main creative force behind Detectorists. The low-key sitcom chalked up three seasons, two specials and 20 episodes, not to mention huge audiences and massive critical praise for its relaxed humour and subtle writing. With Crook benching that show after a Christmas special in 2022 (which was the closest the show had to a wonky episode, so probably a good move), it was interesting to see what he'd do next.

Small Prophets initially feels like it's cut from the same cloth, with its subtle, character-based humour and attention to detail in everything from dialogue to cinematography. There's a small shift in setting from the countryside to a more suburban setting of nice-but-nondescript cul-de-sacs, canals and concreted-over retail parks. The cast is also mostly new, with Crook downgrading himself from co-lead in Detectorists to a more supporting role here. He swaps places with Pearce Quigley, a minor supporting player on Detectorists who graduates to the lead here as the damaged, troubled lead, Michael Sleep.

Where the show deviates from Detectorists is the pretty significant swing into the supernatural in its second episode. What you think might be a grounded, somewhat realistic drama about a man unable to move on from loss turns into a suburban fantasy, an injection of the occult that may make you suspicious that Crook spent a lot of time reading about Alan Moore and Aleister Crowley before writing the show. This shift is superbly executed, helped along the way by the astute casting of ex-Monty Python star Michael Palin as Sleep's father, whose confused ramblings turn out to be a lot less confused than you are initially led to believe.

The show's merging of the mundane with the fantastic is deftly-handled. The fantastical elements, even when fully engaged, are still kept to a relatively low ebb (no fireball-hurling demons here) and are used to illuminate our characters. Michael Sleep is trapped in a holding pattern he can't escape from until he learns what happened to his missing girlfriend. His younger co-worker Kacey (Lauren Patel) is superficially only interested in parties and gossip, but has a very specific acting ambition. Roy (Paul Kaye), the brother of Michael's missing girlfriend, is keen to have her declared dead so he can inherit her house, but his apparent greed masks his own grief over not knowing what happened to her. Sleep's discovery may allow some or all of them to escape their holding patterns and move on with their lives...though at what moral cost becomes an interesting question.

This isn't an explosive, action-packed show, though Crook packs a hell of a lot into the six half-hour episodes, and there is more and more impressive CGI than you might first expect. There are some excellent laughs, some amusing references (Crook's mild obsession with Paul Simon references continues from Detectorists) and some superb performances. The mystery of the missing girlfriend picks up steam in the home run, though it sounds like more concrete answers may have to wait for the (fortunately already-greenlit) second season.

Small Prophets's first season (*****) is compelling, funny and decidedly offbeat television, with a cast of intriguing characters and a very restrained use of the fantastical to illuminate the mundane. It is one of the best shows in what is already turning out to be an excellent year for television. The show is available to watch now in the UK on BBC iPlayer and should be available internationally on Apple TV+ from 7 October. A second season is in production.

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