The special opens with Andy and Lance in a field tossing a ceramic cup between them, neither wanting to keep it. By the end of the episode, they think it might be a reliquary connected to the Last Supper. Ross notes that it felt less like a film that tried to be a TV show and more like a long episode, which is exactly what it needed to be. The drone shots give it a quality of being watched from above, in keeping with the eerie presences that have run through all three series. Art and Paul, welcomed into the gang so warmly at the end of series three, double-cross everyone over the gold from the nest. Lance goes full Gollum, hides the coins from Andy, and it takes Tony to suggest the obvious solution. By the final scene, Andy and Lance are a team again, sharing a quiet look that says everything. The special also carries real weight: the house that Becky and Andy worked so hard to win at auction has burned down, and Veronica is gone. Diana Rigg had died in 2020, and Rachel Stirling, who plays Becky and was Rigg's daughter in real life, is understood to have brought the storyline to Mackenzie Crook herself.

The gang then run through their overall thoughts on the series, covering what made the Detectorists feel authentic to real detecting life: the range of actual machines, the correct techniques, the Searcher magazine on the bedside table, the permissions culture, the lunch break conversations. Ellie notes that she first watched it as a non-detectorist for the British countryside and the characters, and that watching it again as someone who swings a coil revealed a whole second layer she had missed entirely.

The episode closes with a twenty-question pub quiz on the whole series, which dear listener can play along with at home. Questions cover the DMDC logo, Art's 1978 Orado, the number of pints of strong European lager Becky pours over Sophie, Lance's lottery winnings, the name written on Andy's hard hat, and what Sheila orders at band night. Ross disputes this result on grounds that have not been fully articulated lol.

Find Emma at @emloveoldstuff on Instagram, Ellie at @miss_detectorist on Instagram and at Miss Detectorist on YouTube, and Ross at @detectorosst on Instagram. For more metal detecting chat, interviews, and the history behind the finds, follow Katie and the Detecting History Podcast on Instagram and YouTube at @detectinghistorychannel, and listen on all major podcast platforms. Shop at Regton and use promo code DHPODCAST for 10% off selected items at checkout.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It opens with Andy convinced he has found a Bronze Age spearhead. He runs to find water to clean it, Lance gets excited alongside him, and they both realise it is a broken fence spike. Lance claims he knew all along. The apartment switcheroo is complete: Kate is moving her things onto Tony's canal boat, announcing it as my very own ship, while Lance stands on the towpath unable to even look at it. At the Scout hall, Terry produces the proof copy of The Common Buttons of Northwest Essex by Terence Seymour. Print run: 45. Russell suggests his copy be left unsigned to make it worth more. Andy announces the club is invited to join the last day on the permission. Terry has a brand new gazebo, three metres by nine.

The scene in the White Horse pub is one of the best in the series. Art and Paul are sitting against the back wall, arms folded, and Art delivers his well well well look who's come crawling back. Paul, increasingly the steadier of the two, clocks immediately that they are not really interested in bats and asks what they have actually found. It emerges that Art and Paul have been barred from NCMD digs since the troubles. Andy makes them honorary DMDC members for the day. Art fights back tears. They just wanted to be part of the gang all along, Ellie observes. Hurt people hurt people.

The rally arrives and it is everything. The whole gang comes over the hill with their detectors in a scene directly referencing the barn-raising sequence from the 1985 film Witness, complete with a version of the score woven through Johnny Flynn's theme. Terry gives his briefing, thanks Andy and Lance for opening up the permission, and welcomes their new friends Paul and Phil. Lance tries to shoo everyone to spread out. Nobody can hear him. They all have their headphones on. Varda finds a bronze finger ring in the soil, tries it on her finger, finds it too large, and walks over to Louise. From across the field, Andy and Becky arriving from the auction see Varda on one knee. Andy returns to tell Lance he is a homeowner. Lance only hears the first part. Becky outbid everyone in the room while Andy's legs stopped working, with Veronica's money behind her. Lance and Art swap machines. The Garrett Orado, it turns out, was built in 1978. Same year as the TR7.

As the shadows lengthen and the gazebo comes down, Lance gives Andy the speech. Archaeologists gather the facts, piece together the jigsaw. But detectorists pick up the scattered memories, fill in the personality. They are the storytellers. Detectorists are time travellers. Andy considers this. Yeah, all right, he says. I'll give you that. They walk back across the field. A drone shot rises. The magpies have a scuffle in the lunch tree and the gold coins begin to rain down, glinting in the late sun, landing at their feet. Johnny Flynn sings a new verse, heard for the first time. Hoard me in the highest bough.

Detectorists Characters: Andy (Mackenzie Crook), Lance (Toby Jones), Becky (Rachel Stirling), Veronica (Diana Rigg), Tony (Orion Ben), Terry (David Sterne), Sheila (Sophie Thompson), Russell (Pearce Quigley).

Find Ellie at @miss_detectorist on Instagram and at Miss Detectorist on YouTube. For more metal detecting chat, interviews, and the history behind the finds, follow Katie and the Detecting History Podcast on Instagram and YouTube at @detectinghistorychannel, and listen on all major podcast platforms. Shop at Regton and use promo code DHPODCAST for 10% off selected items at checkout.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Art and Paul open in camo gear with binoculars, watching the field. They launch a drone to get a better look. It will not stop ascending. The batteries last twenty minutes. It crashes back down a foot away from them. Meanwhile a solar energy worker arrives, flings the farm gate open and walks off leaving it swinging, which prompts a real conversation between Katie and Emma about ancient trees, the Sycamore Gap felling, and why the lunch tree itself is now under threat from tree clearance. Andy's solution: bat boxes. If bats move in, the tree is protected. He cannot make one without his shed.

Kate visits Tony on the canal boat, unsure whether she needs to be invited aboard like a vampire. They talk about Lance and Maggie, Kate promises to move out and give them their space, and leaves telling Tony she loves her ship. Andy, now on litter picking duty, rescues a hedgehog from the road. His workmate Steve thought hedgehogs were flat. He has only ever seen them on the road. Andy takes the hedgehog into nearby woodland, stumbles on a derelict thatched cottage with an auction sign in the window, no reserve, Colchester, 22nd July, and takes a photo.

Andy climbs the lunch tree to install the bat box and gets within a foot of the magpie nest without looking in. Lance accidentally reaches Paul on the phone while calling the Bat Action Trust helpline, Paul plays along and produces his official bat ID badge, and for one brief moment stands his ground against Art before Art tries to trade bat protection for the field permission. Sly bastards, corrupt conservationists, says Lance. Back under the tree, they hear it. Metal on metal. Coins shifting directly above their heads. The episode ends.

Featuring: Andy (Mackenzie Crook), Lance (Toby Jones), Becky (Rachel Stirling), Veronica (Diana Rigg), Tony (Orion Ben).

Find Emma at @emloveoldstuff on Instagram. For more metal detecting chat, interviews, and the history behind the finds, follow Katie and the Detecting History Podcast on Instagram and YouTube at @detectinghistorychannel, and listen on all major podcast platforms. Shop at Regton and use promo code DHPODCAST for 10% off selected items at checkout.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lance is sleep-deprived and obsessed with the magpies. He dismantles the tent to build a catching net, places a two-pound coin as bait, hides in the long grass and falls asleep. The magpies arrive, flip the coin to tails and leave without taking it. Andy, meanwhile, is back on verge work, filling his sprayer with water instead of weedkiller because he cannot bring himself to kill the wildflowers. Veronica, driven past in a car, clocks him immediately.

The episode belongs to Maggie. Tony arrives at Lance's flat to find Maggie answering the door half-dressed, calling herself his current, looking Tony up and down and calling her Trevor. The empty wine bottle Tony gave Lance as a reward for the hypnotherapy is sitting on the table. She leaves. Later, Maggie comes home from the shops unaware Kate is sitting on the bed, starts sifting through her drawers, and Kate says what are you doing. A text message from Maggie's ex reveals everything. Kate tells her to get her spells and potions out of her room and her bony ass out of her dad's life. The boys end the episode under the lunch tree with Kerplunk and Connect Four, while the camera pulls up through the branches to reveal the magpies' nest stuffed with gold coins.

We commentate on the brilliant series with characters: Andy (Mackenzie Crook), Lance (Toby Jones), Becky (Rachel Stirling), Veronica (Diana Rigg), Tony (Orion Ben), Terry (David Sterne), Sheila (Sophie Thompson).

Find Ross at @detectorosst on Instagram. For more metal detecting chat, interviews, and the history behind the finds, follow Katie and the Detecting History Podcast on Instagram and YouTube at @detectinghistorychannel, and listen on all major podcast platforms. Shop at Regton and use promo code DHPODCAST for 10% off selected items at checkout.

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Host Katie is joined by Ellie (@miss_detectorist, Miss Detectorist on YouTube), fresh from her own Roman adventures and the recent discovery of an Edward the First hammered penny. The episode wastes no time establishing its stakes. The morning begins with what Mackenzie Crook's script describes as the most painfully slow car chase ever filmed, as Lance and Andy find themselves stuck behind Art and Paul's moped on a single-track country lane, unable to pass, watching the clock. When they finally do overtake, the slipstream ripples a couple of blades of grass at the roadside and they high five like they have won something significant. In a way, they have. They get first pick of the field.

What Andy finds there changes the episode entirely. A handful of pottery sherds, blackened not just on the outside but inside, which he identifies as consistent with a Roman cremation burial urn. Ellie, who has been picking up similar material on her own permission and researching exactly this question, digs into what it means: the cremation pyre, the ashes interred in a pot, and the implication that what the show has been building toward from the very first episode is a grave with goods. Two magpies watch from above as Andy makes his case. Two for joy. Meanwhile, across town, a JCB has gone through the mosaic Andy found last week. His boss lets it happen, apologises briefly, and tells him he should not have lifted the flagstone. Andy quits on the spot and is told calmly that the paperwork will be sorted. He does not tell Becky. He goes to see a clinical new-build flat with her instead, admires an inaccessible shed through the kitchen window, and says nothing.

Lance, returning from a night shift, walks past Maggie emerging from his bedroom in a sort of exhausted fugue state, says hello, carries on making his tea, then registers what he has just seen and drops to the floor in pure horror. Maggie has let herself in, gone through his letters, slept in the flat and, by the end of the episode, drunk the bottle of wine Tony had given Lance as a reward for his hypnotherapy. When Lance calls to explain that the weekend is off, he stands in the pub garden leaving a voicemail full of small untruths. Slippery slope, mate, says Andy. He does know.

The episode ends with one of the great cruel jokes the show has ever told. Lance finds a coin in the field. There is an unmistakable glint of gold. His camera battery is dead so he goes to fetch Andy, and a magpie arrives at the open hole. By the time they run back, in slow motion, it is already gone. In the pub, Lance tells the story and the group struggles to keep straight faces. Sheila, as ever, has the only line that matters. The tale of the magpie, she says, and the greedy man. Lance and Andy end the episode camping under the lunch tree, looking for Orion, quietly in the exact field that holds everything.

Featuring: Andy (Mackenzie Crook), Lance (Toby Jones), Becky (Rachel Stirling), Tony (Orion Ben), Terry (David Sterne), Sheila (Sophie Thompson), Maggie (Lucy Speed).

Find Ellie at @miss_detectorist on Instagram and at Miss Detectorist on YouTube. For more metal detecting chat, interviews, and the history behind the finds, follow Katie and the Detecting History Podcast on Instagram and YouTube at @detectinghistorychannel, and listen on all major podcast platforms. Shop at Regton and use promo code DHPODCAST for 10% off selected items at checkout.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Host Katie is joined by Emma Youell (@emloveoldstuff), fresh from a Norfolk weekend that produced a Roman duck brooch with traces of red and blue enamel still on the back. The two of them move through an episode full of escalating pressure. Art and Paul arrive at the lunch tree in suspiciously generous mood, waving a white flag and offering to share permissions. Lance and Andy respond with the Jimmy Waffle. Chinny reckon, says Paul, and off Simon and Garfunkel trudge.

Back at the flat, Lance is waiting to have a word with Kate. She distracts him with the reappearance of the tennis player poster, mentions there might be a squirrel, and disappears to work. Lance spends a considerable amount of screen time going room to room with a broom. It is Tony who immediately clocks Kate was winding him up, and who then suggests hypnotherapy for his seasickness. The session that follows is a masterclass in Lance being Lance. He cannot be on a beach because he burns. He cannot sink into a carpet because he lives on the first floor and Mrs. Morris downstairs will not be happy. He is eventually given an umbrella. When he emerges, he tells Tony he was out like a light. Tony notes the doctor had her head in her hands.

The episode closes with a development that changes everything. Terra Firma, the newly renamed Dirt Sharks, have quietly offered obstruction clearance services to the solar energy company and landed the permission on the boys' own field. Art and Paul arrive on a tiny scooter. Solar John, magnificently unimpressed by all of them, tells them to share and let the first there have choice of field. Lance and Andy stride off. I know you are but what am I, Lance calls back over his shoulder. The magpies watch them go. Stay for the post-credits scene.

Featuring: Andy (Mackenzie Crook), Lance (Toby Jones), Tony (Orion Ben), Terry (David Sterne), Russell (Pearce Quigley), Louise (Rachel Stirling-Watson), Sheila (Sophie Thompson).

Find Emma at @emloveoldstuff on Instagram. For more metal detecting chat, interviews, and the history behind the finds, follow Katie and the Detecting History Podcast on Instagram and YouTube at @detectinghistorychannel, and listen on all major podcast platforms. Shop at Regton and use promo code DHPODCAST for 10% off selected items at checkout.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Druids, Romans and a Scaffolding Clamp The Detectorists on the Detectorists | Series 3, Episode 1

Series three of the BAFTA-winning BBC comedy drama Detectorists, written and directed by Mackenzie Crook, opens not in a field but in a glass tower above London. A solar farm pitch is being made in a boardroom at the Shard, complete with a biscuit joke that doesn't land, and for a moment you could be forgiven for thinking you've pressed the wrong button entirely. Then a drone sweeps over the Essex countryside, finds a yellow TR7 parked at the edge of a field, and everything is exactly as it should be. We're back in Dainsbury. Two years have passed since we left.

In this episode, host Katie and guest Ross Carpenter (@detectorosst) settle into what is immediately a series with more weight to carry than its predecessors. Andy and Becky are living at Veronica's, saving for a deposit, and Andy has taken up vaping so he can stand alone in the garden for ten minutes of an evening. Lance has his daughter Kate installed in his flat, sleeping until quarter to one and cutting the cheese at the wrong angle. Both men tell each other everything is fine. Neither of them means it.

The episode's best line arrives early, when Lance pulls a scaffolding clamp from the ground and rather than complaint, offers something closer to philosophy. Druids walked this land. Romans. Saxons. And then he holds up the clamp. It is the thesis of the whole series in a single gesture, and Ross and Katie spend some time with it, as well as with the cheese scene that follows, which manages to say everything about Lance and cohabitation without a word of direct explanation.

Away from the domestic arrangements, Andy is on a dig with a new employer, played by Tim Key, whose motives for directing the trench work are genuinely difficult to read. The BWDC meeting brings the solar farm threat into sharp focus for the whole group, and a throwaway moment with a prison badge from HMP Chelmsford unravels thirty years of a widow's assumptions about her late husband's time in Colombia. Russell and Hugh remain magnificently themselves throughout.

The episode closes with the discovery of a hawking whistle -- a bronze falconer's call, centuries old and still working -- and then the camera pulls back through time. A Roman burial in a Dainsbury field. A pot of gold coins placed in the ground. Magpies, a plough, the coins scattered into the soil. And finally Andy and Lance, walking directly over the spot with their detectors over their shoulders, heading to the pub. Ross notes that it would only have been modern agricultural machinery deep enough to bring those coins close to the surface, and the discussion that follows is exactly the kind of exchange this show inspires in people who actually swing a coil for a living.

Featuring: Andy (Mackenzie Crook), Lance (Toby Jones), Becky (Rachel Stirling), Veronica (Diana Rigg), Tim Key as himself.

Find Ross at @detectorosst on Instagram. For more metal detecting chat, interviews, and the history behind the finds, follow Katie and the Detecting History Podcast on Instagram and YouTube at @detectinghistorychannel, and listen on all major podcast platforms. Shop at Regton and use promo code DHPODCAST for 10% off selected items at checkout.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Your host Katie is joined by Ellie (Instagram: @miss_detectorist, YouTube: Miss Detectorist) for Series 2, Episode 7 of the BAFTA-winning BBC comedy drama Detectorists, written and directed by Mackenzie Crook, which aired on BBC as a Christmas special in December 2015.

Back in the field, Lance is sitting in the mud with a wasp circling his tea when Andy appears, back from Botswana, worldly wise and looking well. He refers to Botswana as home without quite meaning to. They almost hug but don't. Lance tells him the astell looked a bit like a wild animal trapped in a cage, and that he hasn't found so much as a signal since he handed it in.

At the Tuesday club meeting Lance gives his slide presentation, swollen cheek from the wasp sting, and the final slide is the photo of him at the museum. Everyone claps. Then Sheila points out the hooded figure in the background with the very long hands. Before anyone can say much, the projector catches fire and Russell unleashes the fire extinguisher on the entire room. That's the thanks I get, he says. Terry does not approve of the language.

In the pub by candlelight, Sheila is certain she saw something. A journalist from the Eastern Daily Press arrives, calls Lance Slater instead of Stater, asks whether the find contained any diamonds and gold, and when Lance mentions thinking about a trip to Dorset writes down Australia. Lance gives up. The next morning at the work yard, he discovers Jim the mechanic is no longer with us. He was your dad, wasn't he, Lance says to the new mechanic Tony, who has just slid out from under a vehicle and was clearly not expecting the dead parrot routine. He was. You've got his same pause hands. Tony gets on with the carburetor.

Terry sends Lance back to basics with Hugh's VK30. Hugh takes the CTX out with its enormous coil. Lance finds nothing. Hugh finds his first hammered coin and is thrilled. Lance watches and says sorry. A conversation about Tutankhamun and curses and how the curse was only broken when the mummy was returned to the tomb sets something moving in Lance's head. He visits the coin dealer opposite the British Museum. Then he goes alone to a field, digs a hole, and tips out a velvet pouch of brand new gold sovereigns bought with his reward money. He fills the hole. There is a breeze. The birds are very clear.

Back at the yard, Tony has fixed the TR7. It wasn't actually her dad, she says. She was joking. Would she like a cup of tea? Go on then. One sugar. He takes one sugar too. As he walks away the lights come on.

Featuring Toby Jones as Lance and Mackenzie Crook as Andy.

Find Ellie at @miss_detectorist on Instagram and YouTube.

For more metal detecting chat, interviews, and the history behind the finds, follow Katie and the Detecting History Podcast on Instagram and YouTube at @detectinghistorychannel, and listen on all major podcast platforms.

Shop at Regton and use promo code DHPODCAST for 10% off selected items at checkout.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Your host Katie is joined by Emma (Instagram: @emloveoldstuff) for Series 2, Episode 6 of the BAFTA-winning BBC comedy drama Detectorists, written and directed by Mackenzie Crook, which first aired on BBC4 on the 3rd of December 2015.

Walking off the field, Andy finally says it out loud: he doesn't know why he has this compulsion to keep secrets. Lance, transformed since Kate came back into his life, offers something unexpectedly wise about ambition being overrated and letting Becky take the lead. At home, Becky is in a Victorian flower seller costume, bonnet and shawl, and the veins are practically visible in her neck as she says please don't make me lose my temper, not while I'm dressed like this. She goes to her mum's.

Rally morning on the mayor's farm. Terry gives the kickoff speech. The DMDC fleeces are not shifting, there are 132 left. At the crash site, Russell discovers that Hugh is thirty-two years old, has been receiving pints of Coke this entire time, and has never bought a round. Russell says he feels like he's been groomed. Peter turns up in a red hoodie and Terry strides down the hill to meet him, tells him he's a liar and a nighthawk and scum of the earth, and then phones his old police contacts on a flip phone when Peter walks away.

Kate shows up beside the TR7 and Lance explains the hobby to her in the manner of David Attenborough: detectorists are usually solitary animals, but at certain times of the year they gather together in vast herds. He produces a comically wrapped metal detector from the boot. She's going to come back and open a present each visit. They've got a long time. Meanwhile Andy and Becky switch sides on the phone simultaneously outside a Dickensian school fair, she apologising and he insisting they go, both lowering their phones at the gate. He is a day past the deadline. She accepted on his behalf, just in case.

In the final field, Lance tells Andy he's going to apply for Mastermind. Andy asks who will talk bollocks at him while he's in Africa. Lance says he'll probably just keep talking, not bothered if anyone's listening. That's good, Andy says, because half the time he isn't. Sophie marks an X in the dirt and says she'll see him there in a year. Lance lingers at the X after the others leave, hears something on the wind, turns back, and switches on his detector. The signal is immediate. Andy says leave it, it's junk. Lance says no. He digs. If in doubt, dig it out. The camera pulls back. He finds something. He rubs the dirt off. And after two series of waiting, Lance Stater starts to dance.

Featuring Toby Jones as Lance, Mackenzie Crook as Andy, Rachel Stirling as Becky, and Aimee-Ffion Edwards as Sophie.

Find Emma at @emloveoldstuff on Instagram.

For more metal detecting chat, interviews, and the history behind the finds, follow Katie and the Detecting History Podcast on Instagram and YouTube at @detectinghistorychannel, and listen on all major podcast platforms.

Shop at Regton and use promo code DHPODCAST for 10% off selected items at checkout.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Your host Katie is joined by Ross (Instagram: @detectorosst) for Series 2, Episode 5 of the BAFTA-winning BBC comedy drama Detectorists, written and directed by Mackenzie Crook, which first aired on BBC4 on the 26th of November 2015.

Sitting in the tractor furrows with their sandwiches, Andy very casually drops that he got the job. Lance immediately clocks he hasn't told Becky. Andy opens up about what he's actually scared of: taking his family to a malaria zone when he has no idea what he's doing once he gets there. Lance, newly philosophical since Kate came into his life, says sometimes in life we have to step off cliffs. Andy says he's heard all that before. Where? Oprah Winfrey. Back off. He reaches for the letter to check the deadline and it's not in his pocket. Must have fallen out. It's a sign. Lance says there's no such thing as signs. Andy says there are when you want there to be. Back at the house, Becky finds the letter on the floor, reads it, and says nothing.

At the pub, the barman has Peter's wallet. Lance goes through it despite Andy's protests, finds a driver's licence in the name of Peter Bauman, and then tips the wallet up and a gleaming gold coin spins onto the table. It's German. There's an eagle. It's holding a wreath. Lance covers it with a beer mat and will not touch it. The word for what it is cannot be said in Terry's house, and Terry makes this very clear when the emergency meeting assembles in the operations room, Sheila in her rockabilly swing dress having laid on a buffet and pressed lemonade on everyone. She says she'll get the door before the doorbell rings. She has done this before.

Sophie arrives ruffled, having learned from Peter that he's leaving and it was nice to meet her. She shouts at the club and storms off. That evening by the campervan, Simon and Garfunkel arrive in full night hawking gear and she finally sees it. The stakeout that follows is organised by an ex-copper coordinating by walkie talkie from outside a Lindy Hop, with nobody positioned to see the actual site. Lance has night vision goggles. This is his third stakeout. The first was a marrow. The second was an ex-girlfriend, which Andy says is stalking. Art's beloved Arado detector is run over by a police car. Russell talks in his sleep and says margarine. The mayor steps out of the darkness. It turns out he was in it too.

Andy gets home late to a furious Becky who points out she has a three-month-old baby and says I've got, not we've got. He tells her they caught three bad guys and one got away. She tells him she got on the BSO scheme and she and Stanley are going to Botswana. He lies about the letter once too often and she says it plainly: you're too spineless to take it. She fell in love with him because he's a dreamer, but when it comes to the crunch he won't act on those dreams. If you don't act on your dreams, there's no risk of failure or disappointment. She walks out and leaves that in the room.

Featuring Toby Jones as Lance, Mackenzie Crook as Andy, and Rachel Stirling as Becky.

Find Ross at @detectorosst on Instagram.

For more metal detecting chat, interviews, and the history behind the finds, follow Katie and the Detecting History Podcast on Instagram and YouTube at @detectinghistorychannel, and listen on all major podcast platforms.

Shop at Regton and use promo code DHPODCAST for 10% off selected items at checkout.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Your host Katie is joined by Ellie (Instagram: @miss_detectorist, YouTube: Miss Detectorist), calling in from a cottage on the Isles of Scilly under a cloud of Saharan dust, for Series 2, Episode 4 of the BAFTA-winning BBC comedy drama Detectorists, written and directed by Mackenzie Crook, which first aired on BBC4 on the 19th of November 2015.

Andy has a job interview in Botswana he has done almost no research for. Lance steps in with what he has: bridge is the national sport, thrash metal is very popular, and there is a band called Crackdust. His actual interview advice is to be more sparky and less morose and under no circumstances be himself. Andy dirtied his hands in a flower pot outside to fit in with the other candidates, was clocked doing it by the professor, and then redeemed himself entirely by identifying two Victorian clay pipes and an older one from the width of the bowl. Becky listened to the whole thing on the phone and was absolutely howling. Whether the letter that arrived afterwards was the job offer or a subscription reminder is a question Andy answers very quickly and does not invite further discussion on.

Russell and Hugh return the mayor's chain in a carrier bag held at arm's length, are received in his dressing gown and pants, are thanked warmly and rudely in equal measure, and then produce the gentle threat of calling the local paper about the necklace until the mayor grants them 500 acres of virgin land and a warning that someone is already one step ahead of them. Back at the club, Varda finally speaks, with a conspiracy theory about a German bomber carrying gold bullion that crashed in 1941 and the instruction from Terry to keep it down.

Then Lance opens the cupboard. He has bought Kate a birthday present and a Christmas present every year since he found out she existed. Over forty presents, all wrapped, all waiting. He gives her the cheque for the maintenance he should have paid. Then he asks her to call him dad. Kate leaves looking bewildered. Lance watches her go.

The episode ends in the field with Andy detecting and baby Stanley in a carrier on his chest, hearing about Robert McClint who fell into a vat of soup, and wanting to know what flavour.

Featuring Toby Jones as Lance, Mackenzie Crook as Andy, and Rachel Stirling as Becky.

Find Ellie at @miss_detectorist on Instagram and YouTube.

For more metal detecting chat, interviews, and the history behind the finds, follow Katie and the Detecting History Podcast on Instagram and YouTube at @detectinghistorychannel, and listen on all major podcast platforms.

Shop at Regton and use promo code DHPODCAST for 10% off selected items at checkout.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Your host Katie is joined by Emma (Instagram: @emloveoldstuff) for Series 2, Episode 3 of the BAFTA-winning BBC comedy drama Detectorists, written and directed by Mackenzie Crook, which first aired on BBC4 on the 12th of November 2015.

Lance is caught in the supermarket by Sophie and Peter, flowers and chocolates in the basket, standing by the deodorant section smelling of something Sophie says belongs in the 1990s. He escapes. Minutes later he is sitting on a park bench between a dog poo bin and a regular bin, waiting for Kate, who walks up just as Sophie and Peter are crouching nearby pretending to search for something they've lost. Kate is not fooled. Lance almost certainly knew they were there the whole time.

Back at the club, Lance walks in late smelling noticeably better and Andy immediately tells him so. More importantly, Lance takes one look at the crash site photograph and announces everyone is in the wrong place: the motorbike's number plate is reversed. The photo is flipped. The actual crash site is on the mayor's land, which means Russell and Hugh's traumatic evening in the car park was not wasted after all. They have leverage. Hugh finds the ceremonial chain with his eyes rather than his detector. It is not alone. That one's knotted, says Russell. He goes to find a stick.

Becky and Andy's date night features a poonami update, a double scotch with no ice, and a weak milky coffee with a marshmallow. Becky reveals she has already told school she is leaving at the end of term, has applied for both of them to go to Botswana, and Andy's interview is on Tuesday. The marshmallow becomes a small act of bravery. Back in the field, Lance is swinging an enormous 13-inch coil and dropping hints about not having much time for detecting soon. Andy demands he stop speaking in riddles. Lance stands up. She is my daughter. Andy sits with that for a moment, then asks about the bed that apparently got chopped up lengthways, or possibly sideways, and whether the council came for the bits.

Featuring Toby Jones as Lance, Mackenzie Crook as Andy, and Rachel Stirling as Becky.

Find Emma at @emloveoldstuff on Instagram. Find Karl at @thementaldetector on Instagram.

For more metal detecting chat, interviews, and the history behind the finds, follow Katie and the Detecting History Podcast on Instagram and YouTube at @detectinghistorychannel, and listen on all major podcast platforms.

Shop at Regton and use promo code DHPODCAST for 10% off selected items at checkout.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Your host Katie is joined by Ross (Instagram: @detectorosst) for Series 2, Episode 2 of the BAFTA-winning BBC comedy drama Detectorists, written and directed by Mackenzie Crook, which first aired on BBC4 on the 5th of November 2015.

Lance's flat is immaculate, his favourite shirt is on, and he is rehearsing in the mirror the fact that 90% of onions are consumed in the country they are grown in. He is going on a date and he did not tell anyone. Andy finds out by spotting him in the Lemon Tree cafe holding hands with a younger woman, immediately hides behind a tree, and phones to ask how Screwfix is going and whether they have a mariachi band. He also asks for galvanized nails.

Meanwhile Peter grabs Lance's detector without asking and swings it around a field until it reads a 35 on the CTX, causing visible panic, before pulling out a Coke can. Lance's position is clear. Simon and Garfunkel announce they have formed a new club called the Dirt Sharks, a joke which sails completely over their heads. The mayor of Danesbury arrives at the club needing a discreet favour involving a lost ceremonial chain and the long grass near Barnfather Woods, the place where all the cars go after dark.

In a bonus section Ross reveals the mayor is played by real-life mudlarker Talesfromtheforeshore (also known as Kenneth Collard), who got detecting in during lunch breaks on set alongside Mackenzie Crook himself.

Featuring Toby Jones as Lance, Mackenzie Crook as Andy, Rachel Stirling as Becky, and Aimee-Ffion Edwards as Sophie.

Find Ross at @detectorosst on Instagram.

For more metal detecting chat, interviews, and the history behind the finds, follow Katie and the Detecting History Podcast on Instagram and YouTube at @detectinghistorychannel, and listen on all major podcast platforms.

Shop at Regton and use promo code DHPODCAST for 10% off selected items at checkout.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Your host Katie is joined by Ellie (Instagram: @miss_detectorist, YouTube: Miss Detectorist) for the opening episode of Series 2 of the BAFTA-winning BBC comedy drama Detectorists, written and directed by Mackenzie Crook, which first aired on BBC4 on the 29th of October 2015.

A year has passed since series one ended. Andy and Becky are married. Baby Stanley Stone is in a monitor in Andy's shirt pocket while Lance takes a very confident swig from the baby bottle. Diana Rigg arrives as Becky's mum Veronica, kicks Andy's carefully written baby instructions across the floor, and asks whether he is working yet.

The DMDC has a Roman phallus on the finds table, a jewellery recovery service in the local paper, and Sheila's proposal for a naked calendar with finds pouches covering the relevant areas. A new arrival called Peter walks in with extremely big hair, a small hat, and a grandfather who went down in a German plane somewhere nearby. Lance announces he is observing a period of voluntary chastity. Andy chokes on his pint.

The episode also covers the Saxon astel, the Alfred Jewel, the Tufty Club, what makes a Lily Savage Blankety Blank cheque rare, and why the Six Million Dollar Man now does conventions.

Featuring Toby Jones as Lance, Mackenzie Crook as Andy, Rachel Stirling as Becky, Aimee-Ffion Edwards as Sophie, and Diana Rigg as Veronica.

Find Ellie at @miss_detectorist on Instagram and YouTube.

For more metal detecting chat, interviews, and the history behind the finds, follow Katie and the Detecting History Podcast on Instagram and YouTube at @detectinghistorychannel, and listen on all major podcast platforms.

Shop at Regton and use promo code DHPODCAST for 10% off selected items at checkout.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Your host Katie is joined by Karl (Instagram: @thementaldetector) and Emma (Instagram: @emloveoldstuff) to rewatch Season 1, Episode 6 of the BAFTA-winning BBC comedy drama Detectorists, first aired on BBC4 on the 6th of November 2014.

The episode opens with the tale of Jeff Malzol, who detected below Beachy Head collecting thrown wedding rings until the wind caught his waterproof jacket and it acted only as enough of a parachute to make him contemplate his imminent demise. Andy finds a pound coin from this year at an implausible depth and decides he is done. Lance fills in the hole. Andy sells his detector.

From there: Tony spelling out the brutal truth about Maggie and the lottery win to Lance's face in the Crystal Enigma closing down sale. The open day at quarter to four with no visitors, Sheila at the face painting station, and Russell asking whether it is a fundraiser or a recruitment drive. Sophie protesting her innocence and learning she can call Lance a wanker right back. Andy giving Becky the gold coin and suggesting they melt it down for a ring, getting down on one knee, being reminded he will have to drive himself home because he cannot drive. Andy running to a different electrical shop and returning with a children's toy detector covered in Power Rangers stickers. Lance's reaction. The spare detector for Becky. The 1986 Shandy Bass ring pull. Pub, there's always tomorrow.

Then the camera descends underground through soil and coins to the Saxon ship burial and the helmet below, pulling back to reveal the green outline of a ship in the landscape with everyone walking away not knowing it is right there. The Sutton Hoo connection that has been running through the whole series. Series one is over.

Featuring Toby Jones as Lance, Mackenzie Crook as Andy, Rachel Stirling as Becky, and Aimee-Ffion Edwards as Sophie.

Find Emma at @emloveoldstuff on Instagram. Find Karl at @thementaldetector on Instagram.

For more metal detecting chat, interviews, and the history behind the finds, follow Katie and the Detecting History Podcast on Instagram and YouTube at @detectinghistorychannel, and listen on all major podcast platforms.

Shop at Regton and use promo code DHPODCAST for 10% off selected items at checkout.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Your host Katie is joined by Karl (Instagram: @thementaldetector) and Ross (Instagram: @detectorosst) to rewatch Season 1, Episode 5 of the BAFTA-winning BBC comedy drama Detectorists, first aired on BBC4 on the 30th of October 2014.

Andy detects alone and is comprehensively pooped on by a seagull. Sophie finds him under the lunchtime tree and he confides he wants to sell his detector, take Becky somewhere, and call it done. Lance tries the University Challenge chat with a man called Cliff and gets nowhere, negotiates his way out of work early by offering to finish the pomegranates first, and ends up in Crystal Enigma blagging it with a customer wanting something shamanic, while Maggie still cannot remember how many sugars he takes. Andy pleads through Becky's mum's letterbox with his phone clearly visible in his pocket.

The episode turns when Lance sits in a field, Sophie approaches, and he opens up: detecting is their escape, finding junk and talking bollocks is what it is, and on the 5th of November the night Maggie left, with fireworks going off outside, he walked into a shop with a quid and won £300,000. Then Simon and Garfunkel arrive to close the land. The photograph is taped back together. Sophie says a name. It all comes out. Terry's greatest line of the series. The 150 fleeces. Bishop is arrested. The invisible dogs, looked after, gave them the slip.

Featuring Toby Jones as Lance, Mackenzie Crook as Andy, Rachel Stirling as Becky, and Aimee-Ffion Edwards as Sophie.

Find Ross at @detectorosst on Instagram. Find Karl at @thementaldetector on Instagram.

For more metal detecting chat, interviews, and the history behind the finds, follow Katie and the Detecting History Podcast on Instagram and YouTube at @detectinghistorychannel, and listen on all major podcast platforms.

Shop at Regton and use promo code DHPODCAST for 10% off selected items at checkout.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Your host Katie is joined by Karl (Instagram: @thementaldetector) and Ellie (Instagram: @miss_detectorist, YouTube: Miss Detectorist) for a festive recording of Season 1, Episode 4 of the BAFTA-winning BBC comedy drama Detectorists, first aired on BBC4 on the 23rd of October 2014.

The hospital opening scene tricks you into thinking Andy is detecting outdoors. Terry has a Luftwaffe incendiary device worth of shrapnel in his leg, which Andy's detector identifies as a small bronze coin. Russell seizes his moment as the bravest man in the room. Ellie spots Becky's shirt covered in tiny magpies and opens up the magpie folklore conversation. Andy tells Becky she sounds like her mum. Lance drives the TR7 with an enormous Bluetooth headset. Andy goes to Bishop's land without Lance, directly breaking his promise, with Sophie and her detector at completely the wrong angle.

The second half belongs to the pub quiz, where the stakes escalate until the loser must leave the club entirely. Tony dominates the football, Lads Mag, and Balearic Islands rounds. The astronomy versus astrology confusion. Becky correcting Sophie on Tutankhamun with knowledge from a year four class project. Lance wins an empty victory. The drunk voicemail. An anonymous envelope. An A4 photograph. A closing door.

Featuring Toby Jones as Lance, Mackenzie Crook as Andy, Rachel Stirling as Becky, and Aimee-Ffion Edwards as Sophie.

Find Ellie at @miss_detectorist on Instagram and YouTube. Find Karl at @thementaldetector on Instagram.

For more metal detecting chat, interviews, and the history behind the finds, follow Katie and the Detecting History Podcast on Instagram and YouTube at @detectinghistorychannel, and listen on all major podcast platforms.

Shop at Regton and use promo code DHPODCAST for 10% off selected items at checkout.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Your host Katie is joined by Karl (Instagram: @thementaldetector) and Emma (Instagram: @emloveoldstuff) to rewatch Season 1, Episode 3 of the BAFTA-winning BBC comedy drama Detectorists, first aired on BBC4 on the 16th of October 2014.

The episode opens in the rain with Andy's unfortunate first find lobbed straight into the nearest bush. From there it escalates: the Antiquity Searchers warn about the 14-day Treasure Act window and Lance absolutely refuses to let them have the last word; Psychic Sheila correctly predicts Lance and Andy's arrival with her eyes closed; the fresh lemonade arrives and Mackenzie Crook has to physically pry his own eye open; Lance returns a record to Maggie at Crystal Enigma as yet another excuse to see her; and Andy buys Becky's silence with a bottle of wine and heads to the pub with a cushion under his arm.

The second half belongs entirely to the pub. Johnny Flynn appears in person as Johnny Piper and performs the theme tune live. Lance and Andy take the stage as Lance Stater and Andy Stone, the first time their surnames are heard in full. Becky arrives at exactly the wrong moment. Sophie is holding Andy's hand. Three drinks follow. Sophie's four-word response. Then Terry goes rogue with a walkie talkie and a spade in the forbidden paddock, and the episode ends with an explosion that in 2014 made people wait a full week.

Featuring Toby Jones as Lance, Mackenzie Crook as Andy, Rachel Stirling as Becky, and Aimee-Ffion Edwards as Sophie.

Find Emma at @emloveoldstuff on Instagram. Find Karl at @thementaldetector on Instagram.

For more metal detecting chat, interviews, and the history behind the finds, follow Katie and the Detecting History Podcast on Instagram and YouTube at @detectinghistorychannel, and listen on all major podcast platforms.

Shop at Regton and use promo code DHPODCAST for 10% off selected items at checkout.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Your host Katie is joined by Karl (Instagram: @thementaldetector) and Ross (Instagram: @detectorosst) to rewatch Season 1, Episode 2 of the BAFTA-winning BBC comedy drama Detectorists, first aired on BBC4 on the 9th of October 2014.

This episode introduces the Fanny Magnets, Lance's new song New Age Girl, and the Twin Peaks reference that only one of them gets. Bob Kromer is struck by lightning while detecting in a storm. Simon and Garfunkel arrive with ancient equipment and immediately start throwing their weight around. Andy waits outside Becky's school and gets a visit from a police community support officer. The finds table features a Little Chef spoon. Terry invokes the three Rs. And Lance's Easter egg continues: strimming a verge with his headphones in, swinging in exactly the right way.

The episode ends with Bishop producing a box of what he believes is a bit of brass, and what Sophie instantly recognises it as. The first signal on the new permission fires, hope rises, and a Ford Mustang is found.

Featuring Toby Jones as Lance, Mackenzie Crook as Andy, Rachel Stirling as Becky, and Aimee-Ffion Edwards as Sophie.

Find Ross at @detectorosst on Instagram. Find Karl at @thementaldetector on Instagram.

For more metal detecting chat, interviews, and the history behind the finds, follow Katie and the Detecting History Podcast on Instagram and YouTube at @detectinghistorychannel, and listen on all major podcast platforms.

Shop at Regton and use promo code DHPODCAST for 10% off selected items at checkout.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Your host Katie is joined by Karl (Instagram: @thementaldetector) and Ellie (Instagram: @miss_detectorist, YouTube: Miss Detectorist) to rewatch Season 1, Episode 1 of the BAFTA-winning BBC comedy drama Detectorists, written and directed by Mackenzie Crook, which first aired on BBC4 on the 2nd of October 2014.

This is the episode that introduces Lance Stater and Andy Stone, the Danebury Metal Detecting Club, Terry and Sheila, Simon and Garfunkel, eccentric landowner Lawrence Bishop and his invisible dogs, and the dream of a Saxon ship burial somewhere out there in the fields. It is also the episode where we first hear the CTX 3030, learn what a Blakey is, encounter Crystal Enigma and the tragic figure of Tony, discover that Mackenzie Crook found actual gold while filming and it is now in the British Museum, and find out that Lance's 1997 Triumph TR7 would eventually sell at auction for over thirty thousand pounds with the full cast's signatures inside the boot lid.

Johnny Flynn's theme plays for the first time. Lance and Andy sit under their lunchtime tree. There is a talk on buttons. Sophie arrives and calls them metal detectors. And the episode ends exactly as it began, with a piece of rubbish.

Featuring Toby Jones as Lance, Mackenzie Crook as Andy, Rachel Stirling as Becky, and Aimee-Ffion Edwards as Sophie.

Find Ellie at @miss_detectorist on Instagram and YouTube. Find Karl at @thementaldetector on Instagram.

For more metal detecting chat, interviews, and the history behind the finds, follow Katie and the Detecting History Podcast on Instagram and YouTube at @detectinghistorychannel, and listen on all major podcast platforms.

Shop at Regton and use promo code DHPODCAST for 10% off selected items at checkout.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.