INTERVIEW
The A-list actor and musician on singing outdoors, spotting birds and walking with a celebrated nature-lover
1 You composed – and sang – the theme tune for the much-loved BBC drama Detectorists. What draws you to sing about forests, nature and folklore ?
I’ve always loved the freedom of being in the countryside. I went to boarding school in Hampshire and spent a lot of time on the Hangers, the steep wooded hills of the South Downs, walking, cycling and camping with friends. When I was 14, my parents moved to Pembrokeshire. In the summer, I worked on a fishing boat in Porthgain, catching lobsters and learning about seabirds. It was the most magical job I’ve ever had.
2 Nature writer Robert Macfarlane has been a big influence. How did your friendship come about?
About ten years ago, Rob sent me some of his books with a note saying he writes listening to my music. I thought, ‘That’s crazy. I write my music reading your books.’ We had a mutual friend – one of Rob’s students at Cambridge – and met soon after.
3 Do you compose on your walks together?
Ideas often come to us when we’re out. Acouple of years ago, we made a pilgrimage from the Poet’s Stone, a memorial to Edward Thomas near Steep, to the grave of the naturalist Gilbert White in Selborne, and wrote Song with No Name, an elegy about the people who keep us going. The lyrics – Rob’s domain – came in time with our footfall, our breath and our heartbeats.
4 Ever head out near home?
Absolutely. I live on the edge of Hackney Marshes in east London, with my wife [Beatrice Minns, a theatre designer] and our three children. My 13-year-old son, Gabriel, and I have a favourite spot near a willow tree by the River Lea, where we look out for herons, egrets and kingfishers. We all love picking up things like stones and leaves. Our house is littered with them. Pull down a sun visor in our car and you’re bound to find a couple of feathers.
5 Is it true you recorded a song in a Neolithic burial chamber?
It is. We made the first recording of Burial Blessing, a song on our recent album [The Moon Also Rises], in a ruined chapel belonging to my friend Cosmo [Sheldrake, the musician] and his wife Flora, in Leonard Stanley, Gloucestershire. We then walked to Neolithic burial grounds nearby. We crept inside – I’d brought my guitar – and recorded it again. It was eerie.
6 Have you ever caught any natural sounds on tape?
There’s a lot of field recordings on songs I’ve made with Rob. The World to Come, on our first album [Lost in the Cedar Wood], has the line: ‘There’s a blackbird perched in the branches of the silver birch.’ When we mixed it in the studio, Iwould jump out the window every time I heard a bird to capture its song.
7 Your most iconic roles range from Davi
