The BBC Three mockumentary plants its tripod in Northleach and refuses to leave, trailing cousins Daisy May Cooper and Charlie Cooper as they kill afternoons in bus shelters, scare ducks and interrogate whether a ferret can legally be classed as a pet. The siblings, who also wrote every episode, play Kerry and Lee “Kurtan” Mucklowe: she’s a tracksuited fantasist convinced she runs the parish; he’s a soft-hearted worrier who collects garden-centre loyalty points like holy relics. Their only reliable adult is Paul Chahidi’s Anglican vicar, Francis Seaton, a man organising harvest festivals for fourteen pensioners and still finding time to referee their spats.
Real family doubles as fictional wreckage: the Coopers’ father, Paul, debuts as Kerry’s deadbeat dad Martin, a slippery fantasist whose parenting style combines petty crime with emotional ghosting and whose voice the actor modelled on Gloucester’s most notorious murderer. Off-screen mum Sue bellows down from an unseen bedroom, a running gag that turns the family home into a one-way intercom. Around them, neighbours drift through church fêtes, tractor thefts and terminal illness with the same resigned shrug; Michael Sleggs, playing cancer patient Slugs, quietly steals series one before his own death in 2019.
Across nineteen episodes the show never leaves the parish boundaries yet racks up 52 million iPlayer streams, proof that claustrophobia can travel. Three Bafta wins and a lockdown special later, the cousins finally escape the village, leaving only the vicar to tidy up the bunting.
Production Details
BBC Three / 3 Seasons / 18 Episodes / 2017
Created by: Daisy May Cooper, Charlie Cooper
Showrunner(s): Stephen McCrum
Writer(s): Daisy May Cooper, Charlie Cooper
Producer(s): Simon Mayhew-Archer
Main Cast
Daisy May Cooper as Kerry Mucklowe
Charlie Cooper as Lee 'Kurtan' Mucklowe
Paul Chahidi as Reverend Francis Seaton
Trevor Cooper as Len Clifton
Michael Sleggs as Michael 'Slugs' Slugett
Eliza Hunt as June Winwood
Ivy Woodcock as Sue Mucklowe
Paul Cooper as Martin Mucklowe
Ashley McGuire as Mandy Harris
Badger Skelton as Levi Johnson
Phil James as Ian King
Celeste Dring as Kayleigh Hudson
