Watching the Detective: Interview with Mindhorn's Sean Foley and Simon Farnaby

A brilliant detective spoof taking stylistic cues from sundry ’80s TV shows, Mindhorn stars The Mighty Boosh’s Julian Barratt as Richard Thorncroft, an actor forced to reprise his most successful role – an Isle Of Man investigator with a hi-tech fake eye – when a killer obsessed with the character strikes.
Filled with the Boosh’s trademark quirky humour and boasting a brilliant turn from Steve Coogan as Thorncroft’s nemesis, the film is arguably the comedy of the year. So how did Barratt and co-writer Simon Farnaby come up with the idea?
“I had the initial concept about 10 years ago,” explains the laidback Farnaby – a former Trinity College student who also featured in The Mighty Boosh – in a meeting room in the Merrion Hotel. “When me and Julian talked about it, we felt it would be a good way into the TV detective world of the ’80s and ’90s, which we loved. So we settled on that idea of an actor who’s been asked by the police to help on a case – ’cos we both liked that Galaxy Quest and Three Amigos-type of plot device, where there’s an innocent who believes that fictional characters are real.
   “We slowly worked on it over the years, and then Steve Coogan got involved which sped things up a bit. And then Sean got involved, and he brought us Kenneth Branagh – who has a cameo – as well as a wealth of knowledge.”
Farnaby is referring to the man sitting beside him, director Sean Foley, a hugely respected theatre director who – incredibly, given Mindhorn’s flawless recreation of a vintage ’80s feel – had never stepped behind a camera before.
“It was one those quite bizarre and fantastic things,” reflects Foley. “I was doing a very funny theatre show in London, and at the opening night party, a guy came up to me and said, ‘Do you think you could direct a film?’ I was a little bit drunk and I said, ‘Yeah, sure!’ Then the producer sent me the script and I thought it was wonderful – a proper story and not a series of sketches.
“Eventually, I met with Christine Langham from BBC Films and she said, ‘Right, when do we make the film?’ At which point I said, ‘Christine, I don’t want to alarm you – but I have not directed a single minute behind a camera in my life.’ And to her enduring credit, she said, ‘Well, we know about all that – but you know about comedy.’ The thing is, no one comes out of a comedy film going, ‘The cinematography was amazing.’ In terms of creating that ’80s look, we had a brilliant art department who did incredible things on almost zero budget.”
Farnaby says the main reference points for the film included Bergerac and The Six Million Dollar Man. Was it an ironic appreciation he and Barratt had for those shows?
“Well, it has the feel of a sort of knock-off UK version of a series that should really have been a top-notch US show,” says Farnaby. “There’s a bit of Knight Rider and The Equalizer in there too. I mean, I loved them, and Julian is the same. I remember as a kid loving Bergerac and, dare I say, Howards’ Way. Also, The Chinese Detective and Minder – stuff people would laugh at now, but I used to watch them religiously. I was a big fan; they were usually about an hour, with a contained story and often a guest.
   “But we watched a lot of them as research, and you do forget how the stories don’t quite work sometimes. And the acting’s often terrible and the scenery’s awful, and the fight sequences are totally abysmal – even in the early ’90s. People miss each other by about two feet! You’re going, ‘He’s not even in the same room as the guy!’”
   As Foley notes, there has been a remarkable evolution in TV in the interim.
   “I mean, those shows had absolutely the best of what was available,” he says. “What people find acceptable now in acting and shooting styles has moved on incredibly.”
   In Mindhorn, Farnaby plays the smug Clive Parvenik, who has lured away the great love of Thorncroft’s life – and takes great pleasure in reminding him of it. Steve Coogan, meanwhile, revels in his role as the oily Peter Eastman, who also starred in Mindhorn but subsequently moved up in the world while Thorncroft’s career hit the skids. Notably, the film frequently finds Coogan shirtless and happily displaying his newly toned stomach.
  “He’d given up booze and he’d been working out!” says Farnaby. “He wanted it out there. In terms of his involvement in the movie, I was having lunch with him and he was interested in this Richard III thing I was doing. He then asked, ‘What are you doing with Julian?’ I told him the concept of the film and he immediately just loved it. He wanted to produce it and be in it.”
   Although there was at one point meant to be a Mighty Boosh film, it never materialised, and Farnaby says he is unsure whether Barratt and Noel Fielding will work together again at some point. Still, the actor has been keeping himself busy, even appearing in blockbuster smash Star Wars: Rogue One.
   “It was good fun,” enthuses Farnaby. “I got to fly an X-Wing. I got in it and there was a big screen around me; there was no camera trickery, although I wasn’t actually in space (laughs). It was like being in a virtual reality fairground ride and they read the lines into me. That was definitely one of the best jobs you could hope for.”
Mindhorn is in cinemas now.