16-08-2020, 19:18
The Detectorists
Such a pleasant surprise find! A BBC4 production that quietly gets under your skin. Hilarious in an unassuming, gentle kind of way. The series centres on two friends who go metal detecting together as a hobby, one of whom is still to qualify as an archaeologist while the other is a forklift driver for a big agricultural concern. They mostly turn up very ordinary finds, tin tabs, shrapnel, toy cars etc., and although always driven by the hope of finding buried treasure are pretty pragmatic about it all. In actual fact the fields and hills they sweep are full of relics that they just keep missing, lol! It’s their escape from an otherwise humdrum existence – the romance of hidden gold, artefacts and history.
They, and an odd assortment of fellow detectorists belong to a club that is run by a gung ho ex police general type person and his quite batty wife. One of the episodes is them having an 'open' day with their finds on display on tables. Lance, one of the main characters has a display titled Ring Pulls Through The Ages - hysterical! The characters are wonderful – there are some rival antiquities fellows who look like Simon and Garfunkel which leads to all sorts of puns, a flaky new age ex-wife, a longsuffering girlfriend, a farmer who has imaginary dogs, and a collection of other very clearly imagined personages.
It’s all very ordinary and unpretentious and it’s sweet and kind and funny and incredibly chuckleworthy once engrossed. The characters reveal their depths as you go along and what at first impression looks as though it might a tad boring turns into something charming, clever and superior in quality. I like the theme song too …
Such a pleasant surprise find! A BBC4 production that quietly gets under your skin. Hilarious in an unassuming, gentle kind of way. The series centres on two friends who go metal detecting together as a hobby, one of whom is still to qualify as an archaeologist while the other is a forklift driver for a big agricultural concern. They mostly turn up very ordinary finds, tin tabs, shrapnel, toy cars etc., and although always driven by the hope of finding buried treasure are pretty pragmatic about it all. In actual fact the fields and hills they sweep are full of relics that they just keep missing, lol! It’s their escape from an otherwise humdrum existence – the romance of hidden gold, artefacts and history.
They, and an odd assortment of fellow detectorists belong to a club that is run by a gung ho ex police general type person and his quite batty wife. One of the episodes is them having an 'open' day with their finds on display on tables. Lance, one of the main characters has a display titled Ring Pulls Through The Ages - hysterical! The characters are wonderful – there are some rival antiquities fellows who look like Simon and Garfunkel which leads to all sorts of puns, a flaky new age ex-wife, a longsuffering girlfriend, a farmer who has imaginary dogs, and a collection of other very clearly imagined personages.
It’s all very ordinary and unpretentious and it’s sweet and kind and funny and incredibly chuckleworthy once engrossed. The characters reveal their depths as you go along and what at first impression looks as though it might a tad boring turns into something charming, clever and superior in quality. I like the theme song too …
"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us." ~ Bill Watterson