A Dream of Essex
I think that I shall never see a thing as lovely as...The Detectorists.
I'm sat in Northern Ireland in the sixth week of my self-isolation and I've never missed my homeland more. The reason for this is that I've been watching the third series of The Detectorists on the I-Player and looking at those vertiginous crane shots of verdant English hills. I've been longing for the quiet snugs of half empty pubs, the thrum of insect wings, the unhurried strolls along ancient pathways. That poster of the tennis player scratching her bum.
Its not real. When I lived there country pubs were always far away as I didn't have a car, and then horribly over subscribed by screaming families when the weather was nice. I've never seen that poster except on the telly and I've never played tennis with a woman that absent minded. I have been on walks in the country, though. I've heard the concentrated buzz of the insects, looked at the cracked pink riverbed of my eyelids in direct sunlight, I've felt the warm grass beneath my back. I do love it.
Danebury, where The Detectorists takes place, presents me with a nostalgia for the present. It is a magical ideal. The metal detectorists are presented as oddballs, almost without exception, but they accept one another. They are frequently recognised as such by outsiders but ultimately they are revealed as good and kind and decent. There is a dream of Little England here: the baddies are outsiders, in the second series the villain is even a German! But he is the villain only because DMDC accept him immediately and without prejudice. He is able to exploit their good nature completely. His badness is enabled only because they are good. This is an unbroken Britain, a perfected Albion. A green and pleasant land sound-tracked by the loamy clay of Johnny Flynn's voice and the wintry hauteur of Unthanks' "Magpie".
If the first two series set up the larger ensemble cast - each wonderfully realised and strange - the third series is almost completely devoid of plot: there is a vague set up with a solar farm, there's bits where Lance wont go on Toni's barge and Andy falls in love with a cottage. But really its all an excuse to get Andy and Lance interacting with their partners and with each other. Detectorists shows flawed, crap, middle-aged men attempting to do the right thing and often failing because of the macho bullshit they are saddled with and which they cant pull off. They are useless, well-meaning, decent men, stuffing things up, but unusually for the times, they aren't evil. They're not steaming, puce-faced gammons. They're slightly dull, amiable men, with heads full of trivia, who can't always communicate what they would like to. Lance in particular is one of the most rounded and nuanced depictions of an English man I have ever seen. The only thing in the whole series that rings untrue is that he drinks numbers*. Lance would NEVER drink numbers. He'd have a battered CAMRA guide book in the glove-box of the Triumph TR7 in case of emergencies. He is the doyen of the guest ale.
Danebury is a palimpsest. At the beginning of each series we see treasures buried in the ground. The past is a submerged narrative and our heroes have to literally unearth the stories. The Detectorists is A Dream of Essex: the land-of-the-no-longer-young, a vision of an English Arcadia. Men fail here in gentle ways. People are forgiven and welcomed into the fold. Everyone is accepted and Brexit never happened here. Retired police officers go lindy-hopping, do their best by a mixed race lesbian couple and remain deeply in love with their wives. Its is a land where there is nothing remarkable about McKenzie Crook being in a relationship with Rachael Stirling. I have never lived here. But I have seen that country and I have lived among those accents and I have walked those ancient pathways enough to half fool myself that I have lived there.
And I would go back in a heartbeat.
*Kronembourg 1664.
I'm sat in Northern Ireland in the sixth week of my self-isolation and I've never missed my homeland more. The reason for this is that I've been watching the third series of The Detectorists on the I-Player and looking at those vertiginous crane shots of verdant English hills. I've been longing for the quiet snugs of half empty pubs, the thrum of insect wings, the unhurried strolls along ancient pathways. That poster of the tennis player scratching her bum.
Its not real. When I lived there country pubs were always far away as I didn't have a car, and then horribly over subscribed by screaming families when the weather was nice. I've never seen that poster except on the telly and I've never played tennis with a woman that absent minded. I have been on walks in the country, though. I've heard the concentrated buzz of the insects, looked at the cracked pink riverbed of my eyelids in direct sunlight, I've felt the warm grass beneath my back. I do love it.
Danebury, where The Detectorists takes place, presents me with a nostalgia for the present. It is a magical ideal. The metal detectorists are presented as oddballs, almost without exception, but they accept one another. They are frequently recognised as such by outsiders but ultimately they are revealed as good and kind and decent. There is a dream of Little England here: the baddies are outsiders, in the second series the villain is even a German! But he is the villain only because DMDC accept him immediately and without prejudice. He is able to exploit their good nature completely. His badness is enabled only because they are good. This is an unbroken Britain, a perfected Albion. A green and pleasant land sound-tracked by the loamy clay of Johnny Flynn's voice and the wintry hauteur of Unthanks' "Magpie".
If the first two series set up the larger ensemble cast - each wonderfully realised and strange - the third series is almost completely devoid of plot: there is a vague set up with a solar farm, there's bits where Lance wont go on Toni's barge and Andy falls in love with a cottage. But really its all an excuse to get Andy and Lance interacting with their partners and with each other. Detectorists shows flawed, crap, middle-aged men attempting to do the right thing and often failing because of the macho bullshit they are saddled with and which they cant pull off. They are useless, well-meaning, decent men, stuffing things up, but unusually for the times, they aren't evil. They're not steaming, puce-faced gammons. They're slightly dull, amiable men, with heads full of trivia, who can't always communicate what they would like to. Lance in particular is one of the most rounded and nuanced depictions of an English man I have ever seen. The only thing in the whole series that rings untrue is that he drinks numbers*. Lance would NEVER drink numbers. He'd have a battered CAMRA guide book in the glove-box of the Triumph TR7 in case of emergencies. He is the doyen of the guest ale.
Danebury is a palimpsest. At the beginning of each series we see treasures buried in the ground. The past is a submerged narrative and our heroes have to literally unearth the stories. The Detectorists is A Dream of Essex: the land-of-the-no-longer-young, a vision of an English Arcadia. Men fail here in gentle ways. People are forgiven and welcomed into the fold. Everyone is accepted and Brexit never happened here. Retired police officers go lindy-hopping, do their best by a mixed race lesbian couple and remain deeply in love with their wives. Its is a land where there is nothing remarkable about McKenzie Crook being in a relationship with Rachael Stirling. I have never lived here. But I have seen that country and I have lived among those accents and I have walked those ancient pathways enough to half fool myself that I have lived there.
And I would go back in a heartbeat.
*Kronembourg 1664.
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