Phil Wickham

At the end of the year BBC4 will be screening the third and final series
of *Detectorists* (BBC/Channel X 2013 -), the sitcom written, directed
by and starring Mackenzie Crook about a group of metal detector
enthusiasts ('detectorists') in East Anglia. *Detectorists* has won a
BAFTA and gained a small but dedicated following (including me) and here
I'd like to suggest some ways in which it creates such pleasure in its
audience and how the relationship between the programme and its viewers
is constructed.

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I believe that part of the pleasure of *Detectorists* is the use of
delayed gratification within the show. In an era of bingeing it uses
time and space to deliver ever increasing returns as we get to know the
characters and their world. This is a pleasure enhanced by the weekly
broadcast -- knowing *Detectorists* will be on next week  (incoherent
scheduling of the repeats by the BBC allowing) becomes something to look
forward to, to help us through the demands of modern life. There is an
obvious metaphor here which the show's creators mine. The detectorists
are exploring the earth, digging in vain for years in the hope of
finding gold or at least something that isn't just 'buttons and buckles
and ring-pulls'. In the show's theme song sung by Johnny Flynn he asks
"Will you search through the lonely earth for me?/Climb through the
briars and brambles?/ I will be your treasure/ I'm waiting for you..."
and for many of its audience we do find treasure, a programme that while
it might initially seem to deal with the humdrum and mundane actually
reveals the complexity of its characters' lives (and thus our own) and a
rich vein of humour. A show about nothing is actually about everything;
love, loss, pain, ambition, frustration, envy, fear, endurance,
contentment and laughter.

Patience and engagement by the viewer is rewarded with some comic gold;
slow-burn jokes are glimpsed then revealed in all their glory further
down the line. An example is Sheila's home-made lemonade. Sheila (Sophie
Thompson), the somewhat ethereal wife of metal detector club president
Terry (Gerard Horan), serves up this brew of extraordinary tartness to
Lance (Toby Jones) and Andy(Crook) in series 1 and we see their attempts
at concealing its effects (gosh that's ...lemony'). At the end of series
2 Sheila offers lemonade to the whole group and Andy and Lance encourage
them to accept, holding back on drinking it themselves. Rather than
exclamations of disgust we see the scene when Sheila leaves the room; a
tableau of the group contorted in positions of pain and discomfort.  As
well as a satisfying reward for those audience members who have
committed time to the series, underlined by the space the scene allows
for us to recognise the joke rather than it be telegraphed through the
script, this brief visual gag reveals something else about the
programme; the respect and dignity given to its characters, who in turn
display respect and dignity. Nobody would dream of upsetting Sheila by
saying they didn't like the drink, because she is a nice person who
while eccentric, means well. Equally Terry is a rather bossy, bluff
ex-policeman not above calling on his old colleagues to sort out his
problems but he is also a devoted husband who opts to lindy-hop with his
wife rather than accompanying the gang on their stake-out of
'nighthawks'. 'Dancing more important than detecting then?' accuses
Lance 'No, but Sheila is', Terry retorts.

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All the members of their club (if not their rivals the 'dirtsharks') are
accorded this empathy, including chief protagonists Andy and Lance. Andy
is a passive underachiever whose endless dithering drives his wife Becky
(Rachael Stirling) mad but he is also a good man, interested in the
world around him. Lance at first glance might appear an unprepossessing,
boorish hobbyist but we quickly understand that this would be a
misreading; Toby Jones's peerless performance reveals a complex,
intelligent if unfulfilled, man with a great capacity for love and
kindness. Rather he is constrained by circumstance, expectations and
disappointments. As I have discussed elsewhere[\[1\]](#_edn1){#_ednref1}
Lance is the sort of working-class autodidact that struggles to be heard
in contemporary discourse, but he is resilient and finds through his
hobbies and interests a release from those constraints.  *Detectorists*
allows him to be wise and astute and also gives him moments of grace,
for instance through the discovery of his daughter; he is not just a
figure of fun. As we get to know the characters over time our investment
in them increases and, while it acknowledges the power of the past and
the attractions of the constant, *Detectorists* also suggests that
change can be something that can happen on our terms; after all Andy
finally summons up the courage to go with Becky and his baby son to
Africa and Lance finds his treasure.

Pleasure comes from the respect that *Detectorists* affords the ebb and
flow of ordinary lives. Executive producer Jim Reid has said that "it
doesn't mock anyone. It represents a slice of British life, the sort of
middle ground. The people in it are not aristocrats, they're not yobs,
they're not careerists, they're not geniuses but they are not stupid,
they're just decent people"[\[2\]](#_edn2){#_ednref2}. This respect for
the ordinary is also underlined by the aesthetics of the show. The
perambulations of the detectorists are beautifully photographed by Jamie
Cairney, showing sublime compositions of the protagonists as figures in
the Suffolk landscape and lingering close-ups of plants and insects. As
well as time we are given a sense of space. This helps to create a place
where we want to be, a world where the small has significance and beauty
can be found in the things around us. John Ellis argued that TV 'exists
alongside us, holding our hands'[\[3\]](#_edn3){#_ednref3} and
*Detectorists* feels like our friend, assuring us that everything,
however apparently mundane, can have meaning and has the potential for
beauty.

The last two decades have seen sitcoms pushed from the centre to the
margins of the schedule. On the BBC most new sitcoms debut on BBC3 (now
online only) but those series, like *Detectorists,* who do not fit
BBC3's youth remit have found a home on BBC4 on which they can try to
develop an audience, a tough task in a harsh critical climate. Like *The
Thick of It* and *Getting On* before it the show has successfully
achieved this goal. In a period where comedy seemed to have to be 'dark'
or riven with misanthropy to gain any plaudits, *Detectorists* is
sometimes characterised as 'gentle' comedy. In fact it suggests another
way forward for the genre, one that is warmer and inclusive but still
funny and resonant. It is funny because it is with us and not against us
and it tells us that whoever we are we matter. If you haven't seen it
yet, it's waiting for you...

------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Dr Phil Wickham **is the Curator of The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum at
the University of Exeter. He has written extensively on British
television and was the author of *The Likely Lads *in the BFI TV
Classics series and *Understanding Television Texts. *His essay on class
and 21^st^ Century sitcom has been published in the collection *Social
Class and Contemporary British Television* edited by David Forrest and
Beth Johnson.

 

 

[\[1\]](#_ednref1){#_edn1} Wickham, Phil. "21^st^ Century British Sitcom
and 'the Hidden Injuries of Class " in *Social Class and Television
Drama in Contemporary Britain*. Ed. David Forrest and Beth Johnson
(London: Palgrave, 2017) pp201-213

[\[2\]](#_ednref2){#_edn2} Reid, Jim. Interview on *A Day Out with the
Detectorists*. DVD extra on complete series DVD.

[\[3\]](#_ednref3){#_edn3} Ellis, John. *Seeing Things* (London:
I.B.Tauris, 2000) p74


At the end of the year BBC4 will be screening the third and final series of
<em>
 Detectorists
</em>
(BBC/Channel X 2013 -), the sitcom written, directed by and starring Mackenzie Crook about a group of metal detector enthusiasts (‘detectorists’) in East Anglia.

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

“I WILL BE YOUR TREASURE, I’M WAITING FOR YOU”: THE PLEASURES OF DETECTORISTS