Outstanding In His Field

Mackenzie Crook’s Worzel Gummidge is back this Christmas, and the man himself couldn’t be happier

- Worzel Gummidge

WHEN RED ALERT catches up with actor Mackenzie Crook, he’s on the last lap of post-production work on a bumper crop of Worzel Gummidge specials, which he’s once again written, starred in, and directed while wearing the heavy-duty prosthetics required to transform him into a turnipheaded scarecrow.

“It was brutal this time round,” he admits. “We did three in one go, and so it was a nine-week shoot. I enjoyed the days when I wasn’t in make-up. The shoot is always the most anxious point of the process for me. In my ideal world, it would always be blazing sunshine and beautiful blue skies, but it has to be torrential rain for it to even show up on cameras. I’ve had to learn to chill out about that.”

CHOUGH LOVE

The first festive episode, “Twitchers”, finds Worzel facing competition from an invading troop of birdwatchers. “A flock of choughs turns up in Scatterbrook, which are a rare coastal type of crow with red legs and beaks,” Crook explains. “They’ve been blown in by a storm from the coast and have settled in Ten Acre Field. For Worzel, this is a great opportunity to scare a rare bird – it’s a good one for the CV! But before he gets a chance, all these twitchers and birdwatchers turn up. All their binoculars and telescopes are focused on him, so he can’t move a muscle or do anything to scare them away.”