Mackenzie Crook may not have reached national treasure status yet, but his oeuvre suggests it is only a matter of time. His roles include inimitable Gareth from The Office and Worzel Gummidge in his own take on the iconic series, and, most notably, he wrote, directed, and starred as Andy in the critically acclaimed Detectorists. His latest outing is Small Prophets, a six-part passion project for Crook in which he plays Gordon (a replica of his real-life shed also features heavily). Gordon is an overbearing retail boss more interested in whether his employees have been on their break than he is in the running of the DIY store he manages. Though Crook isn’t the star or the focus, Small Prophets, like all of Crook’s creations up to this point, is a real gem; quiet, understated, beautiful and funny.

Small Prophet’s beating heart is Michael Sleep (Pearce Quigley), who lives alone in an unremarkable semi on the bend of a cul-de-sac. With a wispy beard as overgrown as his garden, his life consists of cycling a tandem to and from work at the DIY store and dutiful visits to his dad Brian’s (Michael Palin, already a national treasure) care home, fuelling the ritual with stale cereal and pot noodles. It is when doddery Brian asks after Michael’s partner (not wife!!) Clea that it emerges she in fact disappeared seven years prior (note: explaining past events to a forgetful elder is a useful plot device for exposition!). That explains his time-capsule of a home and melancholy demeanour.

But with age comes wisdom, and Brian has a brainwave. He tells Michael a story about an alchemist from his conscription to Egypt who grew homunculi, miniature prophets in glass jars. He’s convinced these creatures can give Michael the answers he so desperately needs about Clea’s disappearance. Most would dismiss such a tale as fantastical, but Michael parks his scepticism, digs out his father’s old journals for the recipe and gets to work in his shed. At this point, there is a danger people with an aversion to fantasy -like me- might tune out, but I urge you to persevere. Crook’s project flirts with magic, but is fundamentally a human story. The homunculi serve to represent a newfound purpose for a middle-aged, lonely man. Like golf.

What really compels you through the series is the chanting cross-generational friendship between Michael and Kacey (Lauren Patel), a younger colleague from the DIY store. Unlike other comedies that rely heavily on kindling romance, the duo prove purely platonic companionship can be just as -or even more- captivating. Neither take anything too seriously, including each other, accepting each other’s peculiarities, be that Michael’s homunculi project (which he reluctantly shares with her) or Kacey’s dream to star in Neighbours. They bond over their mutual disdain for boss Gordon (“Don’t you think he’s such a w**ker?”), whose oily hair tied in a rat tail speaks for itself.

It wouldn’t be a cul-de-sac comedy without the nosy neighbours and twitching curtains. To his right are Bev and Clive, a millennial middle-class couple portrayed by the wonderful Sophie Willan and Jon Pointing (who is finally playing his age). Bev is kindly curious, whereas her cantankerous husband is a persistent earworm to Michael, insisting he must clean up his front garden. As with most orders directed to Michael, this one also wriggles out of the other ear, bypassing his brain. To his left is the ever-smiling, ever-gardening Olive (Shola Adewusi), who sprinkles slug pellets and ant powder on her artificial flowers with panache.

Plagued by his Clea’s sudden disappearance, Michael carries a sadness. But Pearce Quigley brings a levity to Michael that softens the blues so that it never warps into cynicism or bitterness. In fact, Michael’s loss has left him nonchalant towards woes of daily life such that he can brush off the mocking shouts of ‘Beardy!’ and ‘Absolute legend!’ from colleague Brigham (Ed Kear), reprimands from Gordon, neighbourhood policing from Clive and the incessant concerned phone calls from his father’s care home (“Hello Hilary, is everything OK?” for the umpteenth time). It’s this attitude where much of the comedy emanates: Michael’s careless attitude turns the mundane into the ludicrous, often exasperating those around him. He remedies boredom by reciting harmless yarns to confused customers (like the time when someone in America created a new colour at a DIY store and made millions. It was called Frelipple, remember?!). Despite -or maybe because of- his eccentricities, he’s a character you’ll root for over the insufferable Clive and Gordon, even if deep down you know he is a terrible wind-up merchant.

At times, I found myself anticipating a cheap twist: does Kacey have an ulterior motive for befriending our strange protagonist?  Willl Clea’s brother (the pitch-perfect Paul Kaye) ruin things by selling the house he has a legal right to? What menacing plot of the kid who circles the cul-de-sac on his bike? My suspicions stem from the ubiquity of this type of storytelling across TV, designed to grab our attention away from the other screen, undoubtedly at our fingertips. Remember when armchair detectives speculated whether Jamie really killed Katie in Adolescence: that was not the point! Instead, Small Prophets should be taken at face value, just like Michael takes his father’s whimsical tales. In lieu of whiplash-inducing twists are pockets of confounding surprises that only a character like Michael could encounter (watch out for his mugging). The show gently meanders between the workplace and mystical folklore, and the result is an enchantingly understated comedy.

Small Prophets is available on BBC iPlayer now.