This Country star Daisy May Cooper stars in BBC Two comedy The Witchfinder, which is set to premiere tonight (Tuesday 8th March).
The six-part series sees Cooper take on the role of suspected witch Thomasine in 1645 East Anglia, while Tim Key plays the down-on-his-luck witch hunter tasked with bringing her to trial.
“Well Thomasine is sort of street smart but a bit thick,” Cooper explained of the would-be witch. “Because she’s so different because she likes to drink, she sort of likes to arm wrestle and stuff in the tavern and do all the stuff that I kind of do myself, people think that she might be a witch cause she’s not behaving how I suppose women should be behaving.
“So she gets taken by the witchfinder to court in Chelmsford. And it’s a bit like Trains, Planes and Automobiles but with a witch and a witchfinder.”
The comedy is written and directed by Neil and Rob Gibbons, of This Time with Alan Partridge’s fame, and takes the style of a “road-free road trip” in an England gripped by civil war, famine and plague.
Speaking of why you should watch it, Cooper said: “Not only is there a superb cast, it’s so brilliantly written and I think it’s really different and it’s like the debut of the Gibbons brothers, who have been working on, you know, so many Partridge things for such a long time and now it’s their time to do their own thing, and I think this project’s been going on for like seven years but my god you can see all those seven years of work into this. It’s something really really different. It’s funny.”
The cast Cooper mentions includes Key, of course, and the likes of Reece Shearsmith (Inside No.9), Julian Barratt (The Mighty Boosh) and Jessica Hynes (Spaced).
The Witchfinder premieres on BBC Two on Tuesday 8th March at 10pm. Looking for something else to watch? Visit our TV Guide or check out our dedicated Comedy hub for the latest news.
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