Small Prophets

Reviewed by Fraser · 9 min read · Rated September 2026

Let’s set the scene first, because the pedigree here matters. Small Prophets is a 2026 British comedy drama created, written and directed by Mackenzie Crook, and if that name rings a bell, it should: this is the man who gave us Detectorists, which for my money is one of the finest gentle comedies British television has ever produced. This is his first series as a creator since Detectorists ended, and by his own account the idea had been percolating for nearly a decade before it finally saw the light of day. It runs six episodes on BBC Two, it was filmed in Urmston and Stockport, so it’s got that proper Greater Manchester suburban texture baked right into it, and it wears its northern setting really comfortably. And here’s the thing that got me excited before I’d even pressed play: the cast. Pearce Quigley plays our lead, Michael Sleep, Michael Palin plays his father Brian, Lauren Patel plays Kacey, and Mackenzie Crook himself plays Gordon, the store manager. If you watched Detectorists, you’ll recognise Quigley straight away, he played Russell in that show right alongside Crook, so this really is the band getting back together. And yes, that is the Michael Palin. Monty Python royalty, decades of beloved travel documentaries, and Small Prophets marks his return to acting after five years away. Getting him back on screen in a cosy BBC Two comedy is a genuine event in itself.

A Recipe for Homunculi

The premise is one of the strangest and most charming setups I’ve come across in ages. Michael Sleep is a quiet, bearded loner working in a DIY store, and his life has been completely stalled since his girlfriend Clea disappeared seven years ago. Nobody knows where she went, including Michael. His days are identical. Breakfast, work, visit his dad at the retirement village, home, repeat. He’s the odd man on the street that everybody talks about but nobody talks to. And then his father Brian starts saying some unusual things during those visits, and Michael starts digging through his dad’s old books, and it turns out Brian is sitting on an old recipe involving rainwater, horse manure and more than a little alchemy. A recipe for growing Homunculi. Mythical prophesying spirits that can predict the future. Little creatures grown in jars that can answer questions. And Michael, of course, has one burning question he’d give anything to have answered. So he converts his garden shed into a secret alchemist’s laboratory, and off we go.

My first impression, honestly, was just how comfortable this show is. It’s that classic British format the Brits do so well, six tight episodes, one complete story, no filler, and it’s a proper slow burn with a streak of gentle black comedy running through it. This is not a show that grabs you by the collar. It’s a show that pats the sofa cushion next to it and invites you to settle in. And I did exactly that. I went through the entire season in basically one sitting, which is always a lovely sign. It’s the sort of show where one episode just quietly rolls into the next and suddenly it’s dark outside and you’re at the finale.

The Cast Is the Engine

Let’s talk performances, because the cast is the engine of this whole thing. Pearce Quigley is wonderful as Michael. He’s got this flat, deadpan delivery that could so easily make the character cold, but instead there’s this deep well of sadness underneath everything he does, and the comedy and the grief sit side by side in almost every scene. Michael Palin as Brian is exactly the warm, eccentric delight you’d hope for. Palin himself has described Brian as an eccentric pensioner, which really does sum it up in two words, and every scene between father and son has this lovely, lived-in tenderness to it. Then there’s Mackenzie Crook as Gordon, the store manager, and this is such a fun bit of casting because Crook has essentially written himself as every bad boss you’ve ever had: petty, officious, desperate to be respected. And yet somehow you end up feeling for the guy. Crook has admitted he initially wrote Gordon as a villain, but became fond of him as he played him, and you can absolutely feel that on screen. And Lauren Patel as Kacey is the quiet secret weapon of the whole series. She’s Michael’s younger colleague at the store, and their friendship, which starts as a shared eye-roll about Gordon and slowly grows into something real, becomes the emotional spine of the show. The scene where Michael takes her out to the shed and she finally sees the prophets for the first time is a genuine highlight. Her reaction is everything. The whole ensemble plays off each other beautifully, and nobody is wasted.

Now, underneath the whimsy, this is a show about grief, and it handles that with real care. One of my favourite threads is the stuff about Michael’s house. He comes across as a bit of a hoarder, the place is absolutely packed with stuff, but then the show reveals why. After Clea disappeared, Michael discovered she’d had a storage locker he never knew about, and rather than let it go, he brought every single item back into the house. Because in his mind, she’s coming back, and everything needs to be there when she does. There’s also this quietly heartbreaking pressure ticking away in the background, because Clea’s brother turns up wanting to have her legally declared dead so the house can be sold, and Michael simply cannot accept that. That tension between one man’s hope and everyone else’s cold practicality gives the whole silly homunculus plot its emotional stakes. This isn’t a man doing alchemy for a laugh. This is a man who needs an answer to a question nobody else can give him. And that’s what elevates the show above being just a quirky comedy about magic creatures in jars.

The Whole Street Is Watching

But here’s the thing, and I said this in my notes straight after finishing it: the best part of the show might actually be the neighbourhood. The whole series takes place around this suburban cul-de-sac, and the neighbours become this brilliant little Greek chorus of suspicion. Jon Pointing plays Clive, the neighbour who is absolutely losing his mind over what’s going on next door, and Sophie Willan plays his wife Bev, who takes the completely opposite approach. Where Clive is furious, Bev is fascinated. There’s a sequence where an entire truckload of horse manure gets dumped at the front of Michael’s house, because, of course, the recipe demands the jars be buried in it, and watching Clive’s reaction versus Bev’s is comedy gold. And then there’s my favourite background gag in the entire series: one of the neighbours has pulled up her front lawn entirely and replaced the grass with carpet, and she’s regularly out there vacuuming it. Just casually hoovering her garden. It’s never made a big deal of, it’s just happening, and it made me laugh every single time. Add in some mysterious visitors in a blacked-out SUV, a witnessed robbery that brings the police sniffing around, and Michael’s increasingly odd deliveries, and you’ve got this wonderful pressure cooker where the whole street is watching one very secretive shed.

Technically, the show has one big swing that really pays off, and that’s the animation. The series weaves visually beautiful animated elements throughout, telling a story of friendship and hope, the magical and the mundane, and the secrets lurking in a suburban cul-de-sac. Crook has spoken about it being a long-term ambition to collaborate with animators Ainslie Henderson and Will Anderson, and you can tell this wasn’t a gimmick bolted on afterwards. The animated moments feel woven into the fabric of the show, and they give the prophets themselves this delicate, handmade quality that suits the story perfectly. These little creatures need to feel fragile and precious for the back half of the season to work, and they absolutely do. Because that’s where the tension comes from in the final stretch. The bottled prophets start looking unwell, Brian warns Michael and Kacey that time is running out, and Michael still hasn’t asked his questions. The finale is genuine chaos, with every secret on the street boiling over at once. And look, I won’t go into what happens when Michael finally gets his answers, because it’s so much better discovered on screen. What I will say is that the final moments land an emotional punch I wasn’t fully braced for, and then the series has the cheek to throw up a to-be-continued card. So make of that what you will.

Now, some connective tissue, because this cast is a doorway into some brilliant British television. If you haven’t seen Detectorists, please, please fix that. Three perfect seasons of Crook and Toby Jones hunting for treasure in Essex fields, and one of the most quietly beautiful shows ever made. Small Prophets shares its DNA completely, that same love of finding magic in the mundane. If you enjoyed Sophie Willan here, her own series Alma’s Not Normal is a BAFTA-winning gem and well worth your time. Jon Pointing, who plays Clive, is fantastic in Big Boys, which is another British comedy that sneaks up on you emotionally. Paul Kaye is also in the cast, and Game of Thrones fans will know him as Thoros of Myr. Crook himself, of course, goes all the way back to Gareth in the original Office, and his Worzel Gummidge specials for the BBC are a lovely companion piece to this, with the same gentle, folkloric sensibility. And if Michael Palin has charmed you here, his travel documentaries are some of the most comforting television ever made, and he’s actually back on the big screen this year too, in the adaptation of The Magic Faraway Tree. Honestly, you could build a whole month of cosy viewing just off this one cast list.

So, final thoughts. I want to be honest with you about the temperature here, because it matters. This is a lovely show. A warm, funny, gently melancholy little series with a terrific cast, and I enjoyed every minute I spent with it. But it’s also, and I mean this kindly, a nice show rather than an essential one. It’s not appointment television that I’ll be counting down the days for. If a second season gets announced, I’ll be pleased and I’d like to see where the story goes, especially after that ending. But if it never comes back? I won’t lose sleep over it. It could end right here and I’d be perfectly at peace with it. It’s one of those shows that gives you a thoroughly pleasant weekend on the sofa and then settles quietly into the back of your memory. And honestly, there’s real value in that kind of television. Not everything needs to be a phenomenon.

But look, that’s just how Small Prophets landed for me. Entertainment is subjective, and what warms my heart on a Sunday afternoon might leave you completely cold, and that’s completely okay. Maybe you’ll fall so hard for these characters that you’ll be first in line campaigning for season two, and honestly, I’d love that for you. Go dig it out, spend an evening in Marvin Gardens, and then come and join the conversation.