Review of Mackenzie Crook's new supernatural comedy-drama

The one-line review is that if you enjoyed Detectorists – and you really should have – you’ll enjoy Mackenzie Crook’s new project, too.

Even without the gentle folk music opening Small Prophets we soon know we’re in similar territory, with a tender portrait of the small, slightly isolated, lives in which Crook sees dignity and beauty.

This life belongs to Michael Sleep – as played by Pearce Quigley, aka Russ in Detectorists – whose solitude stems from the disappearance of his partner, Clea, just before Christmas seven years ago. Whether she simply left him, or there is something more tragic, is unknown at the start, but Michael has kept his house as unkempt as his beard, the living room a shrine to the day she left. 

His existence is not one complete pall of sadness, however poetic. He works at a DIY superstore where he finds small pleasure in winding up customers with stupid, or anti-corporate, answers to their queries. Crook is his boss, Gordon, The Office’s Gareth 25 years on, still a petty stickler wielding his pathetic power, mainly concerning when his employees take their breaks.

Then there are the tender and affectionate visits to his father  (Michael Palin, on wonderful form) at his old folks’ home, where he makes elaborate Rube-Goldberg machines for his own entertainment. Turns out he knows a thing or two about supernatural beings, too, and is the key to the show’s tilt towards magical realism, with the promise that Michael could be aided by homunculi – tiny jar-dwelling humans who can only ever tell the truth. Where Detectorists hinted at folklore beyond explanation sitting along quiet mundanity, Small Prophets fully embraces that notion. 

Michael has more earthly concerns via Clea’s broke brother, Roy (Paul Kaye, typically seedy) keen to get his sister officially declared dead so he can get his grubby hands on Michael’s home. Meanwhile the curiosity of neighbours Clive and Bev (Jon Pointing and Sophie Willan) could prove an issue. 

Crook has made this style of programme his own. Even the nearest other show, Bridget Christie’s The Change, he directed. And it’s great that terrestrial TV can make room for this sort of distinctive, auteur-like programme, beyond the mainstream. 

Small Prophets is a delightful piece of television, full of charm and warmth alongside the intrigue. 

• All episodes of Small Prophets are on iPlayer now. Episode one is on BBC Two at 10pm tonight.

Review date: 9 Feb 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett