This Country
This Country is a British mockumentary sitcom, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Three on 8 February 2017. Created by, written by and starring siblings Daisy May Cooper and Charlie Cooper and directed by Tom George, the series focuses on the day-to-day lives of two cousins living in a small hamlet in the Cotswolds. The programme includes themes of social clumsiness, the trivialities of human behaviour, the eccentricities of living in rural England, and the boredom and social isolation of young people in small communities.
The Cooper siblings play the central characters, cousins Kerry and Lee "Kurtan" Mucklowe. Much of the series revolves around their unlikely friendship with the local vicar, Rev. Francis Seaton, played by Paul Chahidi. The Coopers’ father, Paul Cooper, plays Kerry's father Martin Mucklowe, while their uncle, Trevor Cooper, plays local man and antagonist Len Clifton. Although credited to "Ivy Woodcock", the voice of Sue Mucklowe – Kerry's mother, never seen on screen—is provided by Daisy May.
Across the three series and the special, This Country received more than 52 million BBC iPlayer requests.
Cast
Main cast
- Daisy May Cooper as Kerry Mucklowe. Kerry lives with her mother, Sue, who is never seen. Due to the limited opportunities and mundanity in the rural area where she lives, she is nihilistic and lacking in self-purpose, frequently finding herself with very little to do other than spend time with her cousin, Kurtan, with whom she engages in mischief and occasionally antisocial behaviour. Kerry often struggles to put other people before herself. For example, this is demonstrated in series 2 where she donates a PS3 to Slugs as a goodwill gesture, then immediately requests it back after Slugs doesn't show a level of gratitude that she wanted. She tends to see herself as a figure of authority in the village with "enemies" in nearby villages. In reality, no one sees her this way because she often shies away from confrontation, and her attempts to present herself as tough are usually met with mockery or accusations of acting up in front of the cameras. Throughout the series, more details are revealed about Kerry's difficult family situation which undoubtedly have shaped her behaviour and character.
- Charlie Cooper as Lee "Kurtan" Mucklowe, Kerry's cousin. Although equally as bored as his cousin Kerry, Kurtan tends to have slightly more ambition in life and has plans to leave the village in order to fulfil it, although these are usually ill-fated. He is also somewhat more sensitive and considerate to other people than Kerry, and has an especially close attachment to the vicar, Rev. Francis Seaton. However, he can be cynical, paranoid and prone to angry outbursts, and as much as he tries to rise above Kerry's immaturity, he is sometimes not much better and often finds himself in conflicts about trivial issues. He lives with his grandmother, whom Kerry despises.
Supporting cast
- Paul Chahidi as the Rev. Francis Seaton, the parish vicar. Kind-hearted Rev. Seaton is responsible for most of the events that bring the village community together. He is also something of a father figure and mentor to Kerry and Kurtan, assisting them in times of need and encouraging them to be good people, which is not always met with compliance. While Kerry and Kurtan mock his old-fashioned tastes and his Christian do-gooder persona, this is done with good intentions as they are generally very fond of him since he has their interests at heart more than anyone else in the community. His role as vicar requires him to be a friend to everyone in the community, and he is always happy to lend an ear to anyone, though this means when conflicts do arise he struggles to manage them.
- Michael Sleggs as Michael "Slugs" Slugette. A quiet young man who has terminal cancer. Despite his tragic circumstances, Kerry and Kurtan believe he is too clingy and annoying and try to avoid becoming friends with him.
- Paul Cooper as Martin Mucklowe, Kerry's estranged father. Although Kerry thinks the world of her dad, he is shown to be a selfish, narcissistic man who does not reciprocate her fondness for him at all, and in the rare event he does pay her any attention it is almost always for personal gain. Much to the protests of others who all see him as the man he is, Kerry ignores this and continues time and again to give Martin the benefit of the doubt under the delusion that he cares about her, even after his attempts to manipulate her into handing herself in for stealing vacuum cleaners, a crime which he himself perpetrated. He has fathered two other children, Martin and Marvin, with Sandra. This is Paul Cooper's first acting role - he is the lead actors' real father, and had no previous experience when he was encouraged to go to the screen test for the role of Martin Mucklowe. Cooper reportedly based the voice and mannerisms of his character on unsettling police interview tapes with serial killer Fred West, who lived nearby in Gloucester.
- Ashley McGuire as Mandy Harris. Known as 'Big Mandy' to some, she is a woman in the village who has a thuggish-looking appearance and an unsettlingly boorish demeanour. Her behaviour can be unpredictable and as a result of this, Kerry and Kurtan find her intimidating, though it is never certain as to whether she intends to be a bully or is in fact a rather lonely, misunderstood woman. She has a brash manner of speaking and tells whimsical anecdotes in which she has committed acts of violence or other forms of crime, such as the time she stalked Hannah Spearritt from S Club 7 for three or four years. Though Kerry and Kurtan never know whether to believe such stories, they nonetheless give her the air of a possible ex-convict which causes them to label her a 'psychopath'. In truth, very little is known about her backstory. She often takes up short-lived hobbies, such as becoming a tattoo artist and joining the village book club to showcase her creative writing skills, but her efforts are often laughably poor.
Recurring cast
- Trevor Cooper as Len Clifton. An elderly, lonely man who is a hoarder.
- Daisy May Cooper as Sue Mucklowe
- Eliza Hunt as June Winwood
- Celeste Dring as Kayleigh Hudson, a painfully shy and emotionless girl who becomes Kurtan's short-lived girlfriend before ending up with Slugs.
- Badger Skelton as Levi Johnson
- David Hargreaves as Arthur Andrews
- Abra Thompson as Sophie Huxley
- Nic Kozyrev as Liam "Pork Chop" Dunmore
- Colin Wakeman as Colin Cresswell
Guest cast
- Matthew Rees as Robert Robinson
- Preston Nyman as "Weak" Nathan Kay
- Laura Checkley as Shaz Gallagher
- David Nightingale as Steve "Nugget" Nuggins, Kerry's uncle
- Alfie Simmons as Neil "Count Fartula" Pedley
- Liam Steward-George as PC Webber
- Jimmy Walker as Dan Greaves
- Gerran Howell as Jacob Seaton, the Vicar's son
- Elvira Presley as Kurtan's Nan
Production
Filming for the first series began in September 2016 and finished three weeks later. A second series was quickly confirmed, with filming taking place over the summer of 2017 and its first episode being released on 26 February 2018. A one-off special episode, forming an epilogue to the second series, was filmed over the summer of 2018 and broadcast in October that year.
On 30 May 2019, actor Michael Sleggs announced that he was suffering from heart issues and did not have long to live. He died 40 days later at the age of 33. The third and final series was filmed from August to October 2019, and broadcast from February to March 2020.