Daisy May and Charlie Cooper rule out a This Country return – and reveal ghostly encounters

This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.

Siblings Daisy May and Charlie Cooper shot to fame when they wrote and starred in the award-winning BBC Three sitcom, This Country, based on their childhood growing up in a slightly boring Gloucestershire village. Since then, Charlie has made a series called Myth Country, in which he explores folklore around the UK, while Daisy co-wrote and starred in award-winning sitcom Am I Being Unreasonable? as well as acting with Hollywood royalty like Tilda Swinton and Dev Patel in The Personal History of David Copperfield.

Now, the Coopers have reunited for a six-part ghost-hunting series called NightWatch, where they stay at haunted locations in the hope of seeing something paranormal. RT caught up with them to talk about things that go bump in the night, sibling rivalry, and why there can never be another series of This Country.

Why did you want to make this new show together?

CHARLIE So much of This Country was just us trying to make each other laugh. It’s been five years since then, and we’ve got five kids between us now, so it’s been nice to reconnect.

In Myth Country, Charlie, there’s a running joke about Daisy being flaky…

DAISY MAY Is that what you say?

CHARLIE Oh, come on, as if you’re not flaky!

DAISY MAY Yeah, I know, but I didn’t know you mentioned that in the show. But how funny that I haven’t even watched it. I left BBC Three in 2018 and you’re still there!

C You’re so arrogant and vile.

Oops, I didn’t mean to start an argument. I just wanted to know if Charlie was the driving force behind the new show, and if you had to pin Daisy down to do it?

D He was the driving force, but only because they wouldn’t have given him a series on his own. I’m doing stuff in the States now, but I said I’d come back to help him out.

C What’s beautiful about this series is you don’t have to write a script. She’s the laziest person on planet Earth, so that was the only way to entice her – all she had to do was turn up, and even then she didn’t stop moaning.

I was going to ask if you bicker in real life as much as you do on TV, but the answer’s becoming apparent…

D It doesn’t matter how successful or adult your sibling becomes, you always have zero respect for them.

C Because you knew them when they were a child, you know their darkest secrets, their most embarrassing moments.

Have you always been fascinated by ghosts?

C Our grandad told us this story when I was about 11. He saw this guy in medieval clothes with a face on him that was “damned for all time”. The apparition walked down an alleyway and disappeared into a wall. Our grandad was a doctor and pretty reliable so, from that point on, I thought there must be something in it.

D It was a shared story from our childhood. When we were living in London and we had no money, we would wander around and join ghost walks.

Were you scared while filming this series?

C It did surprise me how scared I got. I thought she’d be more scared than me!

D I brought sleeping tablets, so I didn’t even stay awake. The biggest plot twist was that it was a luxury staying in haunted prisons and castles because it meant being away from our kids. I haven’t rested so peacefully for ages.

C It was refreshing not to hear a baby crying. But you’d fall asleep immediately and I’d be staring at the ceiling listening to your snoring.

D At least I wasn’t windy, unlike you.

Have you ever seen a ghost?

D I was renting a house a few years ago and I was in the bedroom with my baby when I heard running in the room next door. I went in and saw a child in white PE shorts, barefoot, and with a torso but no head. It ran around the bed then disappeared. My son’s eyes were following it around the room, so he saw it, too.

My partner and I have also had experiences in our new house. We’ve seen bed covers being lifted, heard knocking on the bedroom door when nobody’s there, and my partner once heard a dog bark right in his ear – then my five-year-old son said he’d heard a dog woof in his ear. There’s definitely something weird going on.

What about you, Charlie?

C No, but I love the idea of an afterlife. The idea that there’s nothing takes all the magic out of the world.

D The scariest story I heard was when Martin Kemp told me he was filming at an old house and he saw a woman in a medieval maid’s outfit. He assumed she was an extra and asked if she knew when lunch was, and she just vanished. Imagine being a ghost and seeing Martin Kemp. I don’t want to spend my afterlife that way!

How would you like to spend your afterlife?

D I’d want to be in the Married at First Sight apartment block and get the gossip.

C I’d haunt my own home. I don’t leave my house much in real life so I can’t imagine

I’d leave in the afterlife, either.

D Every day, you remind me more of Jim Carrey as Scrooge in the film A Christmas Carol: miserly and thin and haunted with regret.

You swap a lot of funny childhood stories in the series. Was it fun to reminisce?

D I don’t know. I think I need to see a therapist.

C We concluded that our dad is a covert narcissist. Every conversation led back to him.

He appeared in This Country and Myth Country, and you’ve said he always asks for parts in your shows. Is that still the case?

D He’s out of control. He’s written a script about a carvery and he left it for me to read and I honestly thought my seven-year-old daughter had written it. I was gonna say to her, “Babe, this isn’t good enough.”

It feels like, despite all your success, you haven’t really changed at all.

D We haven’t, and that’s what’s so wild. It’s not that we’re humble – it’s pure laziness and lack of emotional growth. We’re still in Gloucestershire, doing the exact same things. The only difference is we have more money.

Daisy, you’ve had what they call a “glow-up”. What do you think of her new look, Charlie?

C Yeah, if you’re happy.

D “If I’m happy?”

C What do you want me to say? Yeah, it’s great.

D You don’t have any respect for me at all. What about work-wise? What do you think of Am I Being Unreasonable?

C Why did you cast me as a Dutch psychic?

D Because Mum said you needed the money.

C Because she’s so utterly insecure, she has to bring me down to make herself feel better.

Did your relationship change during the filming of this series?

C I realised how much I missed you.

D I did, too, but not enough that I’ve bothered seeing you since we finished.

C It was nice catching up.

D “It was nice catching up” is what you say to your doctor, not your sister. I wish that you could view me differently.

C But it’s important that you have someone in your life that doesn’t do that. You need someone that can bring you down to earth and just pin you there.

Will you work together again — perhaps on another series of This Country?

D It’s early days but we’re working on something unscripted. We can’t do This Country, though, because I’ve lost so much weight and I’ve had my lips done. We’d have to say that Kerry’s had a tapeworm and been stung by a bee.

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