Detectorists - Series 2 review

Although Detectorists can make you laugh, it's always in an understated way, almost as if '...' is a punchline.

Mackenzie Crook interview

Why did Mackenzie Crook turn down Pirates of the Caribbean to make a BBC Four comedy?

Detectorists: series 2 preview

Have they got a bit more budget for the second series of Detectorists? The opening episode starts with a historical battle... a big set piece that only serves to emphasise contrast between the drama of the past and the mundanity of the enthusiasts trying to connect with it, though the smallest of items.

Detectorists series two is the same but different...

Some things should stay the same. In the same way that what lies in Bishop's Field should stay in Bishop's Field...

Detectorists, TV review

A welcome return for the sitcom that makes Last of the Summer Wine look like Spectre.

Where to find Mackenzie Crook's Detectorists in Suffolk

He's back wielding a metal-detector in BBC Four's Bafta-winning sitcom - here's how you can follow in his footsteps.

Detectorists trailer undermines its subtle brilliance

Mackenzie Crook's BBC Four sitcom Detectorists wasn't just the finest British comedy series of 2014, it was one of the finest British programmes.

Detectorists - Series 2 preview

Perhaps an unlikely topic for a sitcom, but one that absolutely works.

Radio Times review

The new campaign of the Danebury Metal Detecting Club is causing ructions. Peter the visiting German (Daniel Donskoy) is appealing for the club's help to locate a crashed WW2 plane, but for Lance, it simply isn't history: "If it hasn't been forgotten, I'm not interested." In any case, Lance has other distractions, listening to David Essex while getting spruced up. Smooth!

The joy of Detectorists is precisely the fact that it isn't earth-shattering; rather, a succession of entrancing moments. Becky zoning out - the way people do - during a work meeting. Or Sophie defending her fellow amateur archaeologists when Peter ridicules their peculiarities. "They are weird, so I like them," she says. And more good news: Lance and Andy's rivals, "Simon and Garfunkel", are back.

The first series of this comedy rested as deep below the surface as the long lost treasures hunted by Andy and Lance, also known as Mackenzie Crook and Toby Jones. Those who dug it out from the schedules will have found it to be a magical and heart-warming comedy, later awarded with the gold the screen pair seek in the shape of a Bafta award.

Everything is ever so-slightly out of reach for Andy and Lance in this gentle meander, which basks beneath marshmallow cloud blobs above a hushed countryside, their very first sweep across the screen bringing them as agonizingly close to bounty as at the end of the first run.

The dexterity of Crook's writing and the performances knit together with rare ease such disparate threads as naked calendars, breast milk, and a perfect analysis of the most irritating ways to answer a question on University Challenge. A quiet contentment flows through this world and through them into ours, and the humility of the writing is almost bashful of its talent.