Small Prophets review — Mackenzie Crook’s new comedy is a small-scale marvel
Small Prophets is the kind of show that sneaks up on you: modest in scale but brimming with careful surprises. Mackenzie Crook’s latest turns suburban routine into a gentle fable, marrying offbeat humour with genuine emotional stakes. The result is an affecting six-part comedy that feels both familiar and enchantingly new.
A quiet, uncanny suburban fable
At the heart of Small Prophets is Michael Sleep (played with winning warmth by Pearce Quigley), a man whose life has been suspended since his partner vanished seven years earlier. His days follow a reliable loop — a dream about birds, the old car, shifts on a shop floor, visits to his dad — until a peculiar plan, suggested by his father, sets him on a strange alchemical project. Michael begins to concoct tiny, jarred folk — homunculi — with the power to answer questions and glimpse the future. What could be a vehicle for broad fantasy instead becomes a tender exploration of grief, hope and human connection.
Crook trades the pastoral treasure-hunting of his previous work for an urban ordinary that conceals the uncanny. The show resists cheap sentimentality; its humour is patient and precise, built from eccentric observations and small domestic details. Moments of genuine magic are threaded through everyday life, and the tonal balance — comic, melancholic, and gently strange — is struck with remarkable consistency.
Performance and character: warmth, mischief and empathy
Quigley anchors the series with a restrained but deeply expressive performance. Michael is an outsider but not a cipher: we see his mischief at work, his capacity for tenderness, and the quiet courage it takes to open up again. Opposite him, Lauren Patel is a revelation as Kacey, Michael’s youthful colleague and unlikely confidante. Their platonic, almost Harold-and-Maude–tinged bond is one of the series’ most luminous threads, offering a modern, compassionate take on friendship across generations.
Veteran actor Michael Palin brings a sly generosity to the role of Brian, Michael’s father. His eccentricities — the marble runs, the repetitive conversations — never eclipse the character’s emotional intelligence; he understands just enough to nudge the story along. A supporting cast of distinct, warmly observed characters rounds out the community: a meddlesome neighbour, shop-floor regulars and a string of small-town personalities who each get their moment to shine.
Writing and direction work hand in glove here. Crook’s approach is intimate and deliberate: lines are economical, beats are given room to breathe, and the comic set-pieces are threaded through with human detail. The concoction of alchemy and folklore feels lived-in rather than gimmicky, and the show treats its oddities as extensions of character rather than spectacle.
Place, production and first impressions
The series is rooted in a recognisably north-west suburban landscape. Local high streets, a familiar DIY superstore setting and a snug pub interior lend texture and specificity. Filming locations capture the small-scale geography of mid-sized towns — underpasses, riverside walks and rows of shops — grounding the show’s small wonders in a believable everyday world.
Small Prophets premiered on February 9 at 5: 00 p. m. ET and has garnered an enthusiastic critical response. Early viewers have highlighted its gentle tone, the strength of the central performances and Crook’s skill at turning the mundane into something quietly miraculous. For viewers who appreciate comedies that favour human observation and soft surrealism over high concept spectacle, this is likely to be a soothing, frequently delightful discovery.
In a television landscape cluttered with the loud and the large, Small Prophets is a reminder that exquisite craft and heartfelt storytelling can still make small things feel enormous. It’s a modest miracle of a show: intimate, funny, and quietly enchanting.
