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5 hours ago
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The last time I reviewed something with Charlie Cooper in as “himself”, he, or “he”, was visiting folkloric hotspots around the British Isles as the presenter of Myth Country. I was beguiled by the impossibility of identifying where his most famous creation, Kurtan, in the brilliant, heartbreaking comedy This Country, written by Charlie and his sister Daisy May, left off and the real Cooper began. Or, if you prefer, where the real Cooper left off and Kurtan began. What were we to make of him listening with apparently genuine delight on his face to a man playing an old local tune on a recorder before announcing with perfect Kurtanish sensibility and timing that it was because: “In the wrong hands, it’s murder”? He watched with admiration as a friend with a divining rod approached and re-approached some ancient stones near – but, crucially not actually part of – the historic Avebury site of neolithic monuments. “I dread to think how long he’d be here doing that,” Cooper/Kurtan whispered to camera. “He’s light years ahead of his time.” Then a quintessentially Kurtanish worried pause. “Or light years behind his time.”
I have pondered Fractal Cooper – genius? Poet? Muppet who’s right twice a day? – in many a quiet moment since. So I welcomed the chance to dwell with him awhile again in Daisy May and Charlie Cooper’s NightWatch, a slice of Halloween schedule-filler in which he and Daisy – who plays Kurtan’s more, uh, limited cousin Kerry in the sitcom – spend the night in different spooky locations in the hope of being visited by ghosts, an ambition they have shared since their Ouija board-playing games as children. And while I cannot say yet that I have the measure of the man, whose essence is perhaps as uncapturable as the spectres they seek, it becomes possible to conjecture that there are at least two threads running through both artist and invention.
One is that in dealing with Daisy May/Kerry – chaos demons both, in very different ways – they have the patience of a saint. Our first sight of Daisy is of her emerging from a crystals shop laden with protective amulets for their adventures. Our second is of her unpacking her luggage for their single-night stay in the long abandoned Gloucester prison, said to be haunted by the souls of the 123 men who were hanged there. She has brought cushions, a dry robe, a stuffed unicorn (“For comfort”), fairy lights, a face mask, a foot mask and – sensibly – two hot-water bottles and some pillows. “It’s like a clown’s suitcase,” marvels her brother as items keep emerging. He has brought a tiny rucksack, which at least means he is good for packhorse duties. She doesn’t have a phone though. She has to borrow his to order them pad thai. It is my ambition in life to become much, much more Daisy May Cooper. Why should we not, it suddenly occurs to me, all be so comfortable?
The second common denominator between Charlie and Kurtan is that they are both romantics. Stuck in a life he does not want, but cannot fully re-imagine in This Country, is Kurtan’s tragedy. Here, in the real world, it is Charlie’s charm. He wants to see not just a ghost but “a hearty Victorian ghost, like a gaoler!” And when they are put in the tiny cell for the night, as Daisy May gets comfortable with her pillows and her unicorn, he looks at the mirror over the sink and wonders about all the faces that have seen themselves reflected in it over the years. “Quite moving, actually.” He does also comment that Daisy May needn’t worry about him getting up in the night to pee. “You’re like a hippo. Once you’re asleep, you’re done, there’s no waking you up.” Whatever else they are, brothers are always brothers.
And that is the main draw of the show, otherwise built on the flimsiest of premises – the sight of the siblings together, and the unfakeable camaraderie between them. Which, as any sib knows, comprises equal parts bickering (“I will go home!” threatens Charlie as Daisy May loads him up with another bag from the car. “Good!” replies his sister instantly. “Glad!”), shared memories (Charlie and his dad chasing a burglar out on to the street in their matching underpants) and negotiation of fart hazards (“Your particles have been absorbed by the mattress above me,” says a content Daisy May, who took the bottom bunk). Later episodes contain more of the same (“You have the gauntness of a highwayman,” says Daisy May appraisingly as they head for an inn notorious as a stop for the historic robbers and their victims) and even stray occasionally into mildly emotional-revealing territory as long nights wear on.
For those who like their Halloween programming heavier on the supernatural investigations, it won’t do at all – the sole gesture towards it in the first programme is Daisy May laughing herself to death as Charlie waves a spirit radio around the place; in the second, they set up a teddy bear that senses temperature changes in the pub bar and go to bed. But for those of us who can’t wait for this stupid season and festival to be over, and who love the Coopers and This Country beyond the telling of it – well, let’s enjoy our precious time together.
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Nightwatch aired on BBC Two and is available on iPlayer.
