CHARLEY BRADY
There’s a half-hour show on Netflix at the moment called Detectorists, written and directed by Mackenzie Crook; and it won’t even take you half an hour to immediately decide to watch all three seasons.
You’ll love me so much for recommending this that you will immediately want to put money into my drained bank account and buy me lots of alcohol.
It simply revolves around metal detectors Andy, Lance, and their misfit, lovable buddies who live in the gorgeous fictional village of Danebury in Essex. Along with Twin Peaks, just south of the Canadian border and Cicily, Alaska, it is now officially on the list of places I want to spend Eternity in when I fall off the twig.
In the final season, Lance (Toby Jones) muses on why they do what they do. And it took me back more than 50 years to my discovery – in a great big picture book in the school library – of the Silent Era.
I’m often asked why we do it, why people care so much about preserving and restoring these great old movies, or – as with the Silent Cinema Galway – just work so hard to keep the memory of them alive.
Well, although he’s talking about something else, I’ll let Lance explain. Because he could be talking for me.
“Why do we do it? Because it’s the closest you’ll get to time travel. See… archaeologists, gather the facts; and piece the jigsaw together; they work out how we lived and find the buildings we lived in. But what we do is different. We unearth the scattered memories, mind the stories, and fill in the personalities. We’re time travelers.”
Yes, we mind the stories and keep them alive. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think that I have something in my eye.
charleybrady@gmail.com