Could it be magic?

As his latest series, Small Prophets, lands, Mackenzie Crook says he's 'fascinated by stories of ordinary people that something extraordinary happens to'

- By Zoe Williams

In Small Prophets, BBC Two’s new six-parter, Mackenzie Crook plays Gordon, the manager of a huge DIY store. Sometimes it feels like falling through time, because it’s like watching Gareth, Crook’s breakthrough part in The Office, a quarter of a century on. “Pedantic and jobsworthy, he could be Gareth grown up, just with more disappointment, without the West Country accent,” says Crook. “I wrote Gordon as a monster, but by the end, I was actually quite fond of him.” In person, Crook has a jumpy, modest energy that when he was young, on screen, used to look like nerves, but now looks more like curiosity.

Gordon isn’t the hero of Small Prophets; he's not even the antihero. This is the story of Michael, played by Pearce Quigley, in a performance so comically, subtly heartbreaking that you can rarely figure out what you’re melancholy about. Fiftyish, bearded, a twitcher and a hoarder, he works in the DIY store and visits his dad Brian (a lovely performance from Michael Palin) every afternoon. Michael has had a huge tragedy in the recent past - his girlfriend Clea disappeared without trace seven years earlier - but he would never make a song and dance about it.

At first sight, it could be a delicate and truthful rumination on middle age. “Of course it is,” says Crook. “I’m a little bit obsessed by being middle-aged. It crept up on me. Everything seems to have been 20 years ago. It’s a surprise to find myself with grownup children.”