{"id":9296,"date":"2021-12-28T10:00:17","date_gmt":"2021-12-28T09:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1537888"},"modified":"2021-12-28T10:19:22","modified_gmt":"2021-12-28T09:19:22","slug":"mackenzie-crook-on-the-future-of-worzel-gummidge-and-why-playing-the-scarecrow-is-like-therapy","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/mackenzie-crook-on-the-future-of-worzel-gummidge-and-why-playing-the-scarecrow-is-like-therapy\/","title":{"rendered":"Mackenzie Crook on the future of Worzel Gummidge and why playing the scarecrow is like \u201ctherapy\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Morgan Jeffery\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 28 December 2021 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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Mackenzie Crook\u2019s adaptation of Barbara Euphan Todd\u2019s Worzel Gummidge<\/a> stories might\u2019ve only premiered in 2019, but somehow these tales of a misfit scarecrow and his young human friends already feel like a festive tradition, with two new adventures airing this year on the 28th and 29th of December on BBC One.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted it to be event television \u2013 like a holiday thing that you would watch again and again,\u201d Crook tells RadioTimes.com<\/a>. \u201c<\/span>If these episodes become some sort of staple, that would be amazing. Because I think that the BBC is a place where things like that can happen. Things become embedded in our consciousness and don\u2019t just drift away and are never seen again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christmas, a time of year when communal viewing \u2013 and in particular watching TV with the family \u2013 is at its height, always felt like a natural fit for the show to Crook. \u201cI wanted this to be old- fashioned television, I wanted people to sit down and watch it together, not on a device with earphones in. That took a bit of persuading, that that was even a thing anymore. There was a little bit of wrestling backwards and forwards about the schedule, where it was going to be put, because I wanted it to air at a time when people would watch it live, as it was being broadcast \u2013 and I think that\u2019s how a lot of people did watch it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition to playing Worzel, BAFTA winner Crook has also written and directed all six episodes of the series, including the two latest: Twitchers, which sees Worzel\u2019s plan to scare a flock of choughs scuppered by a pack of birdwatchers, and Calliope Jane, an enchanting outing set against the backdrop of an old-fashioned funfair (and featuring a guest appearance from Bill Bailey).<\/p>

\u201cFor these three episodes [a Bonfire Night special, Guy Forks<\/a>, aired in November], I haven\u2019t used any stories directly from the books, just been inspired by the world that Barbara Euphan Todd created and the characters and place names, that sort of thing,\u201d Crook explains. \u201cBut these stories have come from my imagination.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Drawing these stories out is something of a process for Crook, with a secondary task often keeping him his busy mind occupied while he also writes new Worzel scripts. \u201cIt takes me an hour or two before I even write a word, sort of just getting into the zone, whatever that may be. On the first series I was drawing, I drew sketches of all the different scarecrow characters, sort of got into a writing day like that. I usually do have to have some sort of other project going on at the same time. I do short bursts of writing and then swap it out to something else.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

One prop which appears in the Twitchers episode \u2013 a handwritten guide to birds belonging to Worzel \u2013 was actually produced by Crook himself as one of these side projects. \u201cI made that whilst I was writing this series and swapping between the two. I wrote the entire book \u2013 only a few of the pages are actually seen when flipped through it, but it was important to have this prop, and know what he was thinking writing his book.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHow would Worzel think? What would be interesting to him? It led me to understand him in a deeper way.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\""Worzel\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
BBC\/Leopard Films\/Chris Harris<\/i> <\/span>\n<\/div>\n

The end result is always something magical \u2013 back in 2019, RadioTimes.com<\/strong> hailed the first pair of Worzel Gummidge films as \u201cfunny, exciting, cheeky, magical, [and] feel-good<\/a>\u201c, while last year\u2019s Saucy Nancy<\/a> was similarly hailed as an \u201cenchanting hour of drama\u201d and the recent Guy Forks<\/a> as \u201ctruly great television\u201d. Like its title character, Worzel Gummidge is a charming oddity \u2013 with heaps of heart and oodles of optimism, there\u2019s nothing else on TV quite like it.<\/p>\n

Crook says writing and playing the character is \u201csort of therapy\u201d for him. \u201cI don\u2019t know if I am an optimist. I know there are lots of things in the world that wind me up. With Worzel, I have to force myself not to be cynical because the whole idea is to bring some good into the world\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI have to keep an eye on sarcasm, and being a bit cynical. But I don\u2019t want it to just be saccharin and sweet all the way through, so I do try and put some irreverent bits in.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Key to the countryside-set show\u2019s ethos is its environmental slant, with its urging to respect and support wildlife coming straight from Crook and often being voiced by the show\u2019s youngest characters, Worzel\u2019s friends Susan (India Brown) and John (Thierry Wickens). \u201cThat is the case in the real world. It\u2019s the adults that are catching up and younger generations have lived with these questions about the environment all their lives. So they know about it and we\u2019re still to be convinced of some of it, it seems.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

With Worzel, Crook has defied the old warning to \u201cnever work with children or animals\u201d \u2013 though he admits his human cast-mates are far easier to work alongside than certain of their creature co-stars.<\/p>\n

\""Worzel\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
BBC\/Leopard Films\/Chris Harris<\/i> <\/span>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re revelations,\u201d he says of Brown and Wickens. \u201cI<\/span>n the original books, Susan and John were these middle class kids that come to stay with their poor relations in the country\u2026 and that didn\u2019t really ring true anymore. So I wanted them to be foster kids coming from the city, which meant that there were no restrictions on who we could audition. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to get Susan first because she had more lines \u2013 we saw loads of girls and India just just stood out from the rest. She was just so natural, and so easy-to-smile, if you know what I mean. Lots of the others came in thinking I wanted this sort of surly teenager, where India just came beaming smiles, and she was the one. And then I wanted someone who could conceivably be her biological brother \u2013 I thought it was important they were siblings \u2013 and so then we went and found Thierry and he was just as easy-to-smile.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIndia had done quite a bit of work beforehand, but Thierry, I think this was his first job. I really have watched him grow \u2013 he was brilliant to start with but his comic timing, he\u2019s honed that In the last couple of years. He\u2019s a funny guy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\""Worzel\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Worzel Gummidge (Mackenzie Crook) and Aunt Sally (Vicki Pepperdine) in Calliope Jane<\/span><\/figcaption> BBC\/Leopard Films\/Chris Harris<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

Crook is similarly full of praise for the crows who appear in Worzel Gummidge (\u201cAll the birds are quite incredible \u2013 they usually get it in one take\u201d) but adds that \u201cfoxes are more difficult\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI should have learnt my lesson, because I had trouble with a fox on Detectorists and I put one into this, into the fairground one [Calliope Jane] and it took a very long time to get not very much footage of a fox.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Detectorists, the award-winning BBC Four comedy about two metal detector enthusiasts was also written and directed by Crook and ran for three series between 2014 and 2017. That series marked his directorial debut and while he insists he\u2019s \u201cstill learning\u201d, he says he\u2019s \u201ccertainly more confident\u201d at the helm of Worzel Gummidge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI leant very heavily on my first assistant director and director of photography on Detectorists and now I feel more confident. But when\u00a0<\/span>I think back on Detectorists, it does seem like halcyon days \u2013 the sun was always shining and I didn\u2019t have to get up at three o\u2019clock in the morning to put rubber on my face.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n