Small Prophets Review: ★★★★★ (5/5)
Small Prophets is a gentle, genuinely magical comedy that finds real warmth in grief and loneliness, anchored by a quietly brilliant performance from Pearce Quigley and a heartfelt supporting cast led by Michael Palin.
Rating: ★★★★★ (5/5)
Platform: Apple TV
Genre: Comedy, Magical Realism
Episodes: 6
Creator: Mackenzie Crook
Cast: Pearce Quigley, Lauren Patel, Michael Palin
Small Prophets centers on Michael Sleep, played by Pearce Quigley, a middle-aged man quietly barely getting by in the years since his partner Clea vanished without a trace. Long-bearded and more than a little unkempt, Michael lives in a house that mirrors exactly where his mind has been stuck: overgrown grass out front, clutter piled everywhere, and one single room kept perfectly preserved just as it was the Christmas Eve his partner disappeared. It is about as quietly devastating a detail as a show can open with.
Michael has not quite lost his dry sense of humor, though, and he still technically has a job, working at a home improvement superstore where he spends most of his day amusingly talking customers out of buying things rather than selling them anything.
He does not get along with his supervisor, played by series creator Mackenzie Crook, but he strikes up a genuinely warm friendship with a new hire named Kacey, played by Lauren Patel, who shares his particular sense of humor.
Rounding out his world is his father Brian, played by Monty Python legend Michael Palin, living in a care home with the early stages of dementia, along with an ex-brother-in-law eager to reclaim the house, and a pair of nosy neighbors who spend their time watching his every move.
Over six tight half-hour episodes, Crook builds something genuinely warm and unexpected out of a delightfully fantastical premise. Michael’s father convinces him to start growing small, prophetic homunculi in jars, tiny humanoid creatures that, according to old alchemical tradition, can reveal the truth about anything, including what actually happened to Clea.
Using an odd assortment of ingredients, from old coins to rainwater to horse dung, Michael begins the strange process, all while raising the suspicions of his neighbors and drawing Kacey into his increasingly strange project.
What makes Small Prophets so special is how it treats its own strangeness with complete sincerity. Nobody in the show stops to acknowledge how genuinely bizarre any of this is, which keeps the whole thing from ever tipping into cartoonish or overly quirky territory.
Instead, the focus stays firmly on Michael’s very real emotional journey, particularly his touching, evolving friendship with Kacey and his tender, if often confused, relationship with his father.
Even the show’s villains are lovable here: Michael’s supervisor, his nosy neighbors, even his initially irritating brother-in-law; none of them carry any real malice, just ordinary personal motivations.
That understanding, warm gaze gives Small Prophets a genuinely comforting quality without ever tipping into the more typically sweet, crowd-pleasing style of a show like Ted Lasso. It feels more real and lived-in than that, closer in spirit to the humanist, working-class portraits found in Mike Leigh’s films, just with a touch of alchemy thrown in for good measure.
Pearce Quigley delivers a genuinely special, career-best performance as Michael, playing him as sarcastic and grouchy without ever once acting like he is delivering punchlines. He comes across as someone who has poured every ounce of his patience into caring for his father and chasing a mystery he has quietly resigned himself to never solving, leaving nothing left over for anyone else, including himself.
Lauren Patel is equally wonderful as Kacey, making their unlikely friendship feel completely unforced and increasingly sweet without ever veering into saccharine territory. Michael Palin, unsurprisingly, is a delight too, playing Brian’s confusion with a matter-of-fact tenderness that suggests a once boundless imagination now quietly contained by age.
Across its six episodes, Small Prophets escalates in ways that always feel believable, never predictable, producing more than a few genuine laughs alongside some unexpectedly moving moments. It is a small, strange, beautifully controlled little show, and despite its modest title, what it offers viewers willing to buy into its magic is anything but small.
If darker, flashier thrillers are more your pace this week, our review of Kill Jackie and our review of Verity are both worth checking out too.