Aahana Swrup
Created by Mackenzie Crook, ‘Small Prophets’ is a whimsical fantasy drama series where an eccentric, reclusive man embarks on an unintentional journey towards alchemy. Seven years ago, Michael Sleep experienced a world-changing loss when his partner, Clea, disappeared. Since then, he has lain in wait, stuck in a dead-end job, in a lonely house and a rapidly overgrowing garden, desperately holding onto the hope that his girlfriend will eventually return.
As a result, his father, Brian, a resident at a nursing home with dwindling mental faculties, tries to offer his son some answers by encouraging him to seek out the Homunculi. They’re tiny human-like creatures created out of ancient alchemy, who are prophets bound to their creator. Despite his skepticism, Michael decides to embrace this undertaking once he discovers the probable truth about the existence of such creatures. Even though the show centers around the titular mystic beings, Michael’s life itself remains steeped in the mundane, imbuing the series with some grounded realism.
Small Prophets Was Inspired by the Alchemical History of the Homunculus
Given its supernatural premise, ‘Small Prophets’ inevitably remains a work of fiction. Yet, the fantasy element in the series stems from a fountain of historical influence and inspiration. The show’s creator, Mackenzie Crook, who also serves as the sole writer and director on the project, got the idea for the story from a footnote in a book he once read. According to Ainslie Henderson, the animator who worked on the show, this book could have been ‘Clea,’ a novel by Lawrence Durrell. Published in 1960 as the fourth installment of ‘The Alexandria Quartet,’ the book off-handedly mentions Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim, better known as Paracelsus, a Swiss philosopher and alchemist from the 16th century.
In a Radio Times article about the inspiration for the series, Crook shared, “Why I was reading this book (which mentions Paracelsus) I can’t really remember or explain, but I’m glad I did. The passage intrigued me, and I squirreled it away for future use. It told of a mystic who had grown eight homunculi, magical spirits able to predict the future, in glass jars full of water. It described the process of how these creatures were generated (including a step where the jars were buried in a steaming heap of horse manure) and went into such precise detail that you could start to believe it might actually be true.”
Eventually, this existing history around the idea of the homunculi became the foundation for the fictionalized narrative of ‘Small Prophets.’ Although Paracelsus isn’t confidently credited with the conceptualization of the homunculi as a whole, his work on the topic as a medical alchemist remains fundamental to the modern understanding of the concept. The creatures, described as small artificial humans, appear in alchemical history from the medieval to early modern times across the work of various alchemists. Furthermore, there’s also plenty of folklore that has stemmed from the idea. Ultimately, ‘Small Prophets’ builds upon these same existing mythologies and its history, blending them into the fictitious world and narrative of protagonist Michael Sleep.
Michael Sleep is a Fictional Character Who Balances the Mystic With the Mundane
Much like the worldbuilding of ‘Small Prophets,’ its protagonist, Michael Sleep, also remains similarly fictitious. The modern-day alchemist who stumbles into the world of the homunculi out of desperation has no direct counterparts in reality. However, one of the defining aspects of his characterization, his garage, sports a notable real-life inspiration. When creating the series, Mackenzie Crook found himself incorporating a part of his own lived reality into the story. In the show, Michael dabbles in the alchemist arts of creating homunculi in his garage. This location is almost an identical replica of Crook’s own shed, where he works on his creative projects.
While discussing the same, Crook said, “It’s (the creator’s real-life shed) also a laboratory where I cook up ideas and make props, and I decided that Michael Sleep should have a similar space to work in ‘Small Prophets.’ When I took the idea to the BBC, they commissioned a short “taster”, a couple of scenes to see how the show might look and to try out the animation. In the summer of 2023, a small camera crew came to my house, and we spent an enjoyable day filming in my shed.” Eventually, as the series began shooting, a replica of this shed was created to serve as Michael’s primary alchemist bunker.
Apart from this unique similarity, Michael’s narrative, which revolves around his inability to move from a pivotal tragedy in his life, also contributes to the character’s overarching sense of relatability. His mundane and commonplace job at a hardware store, uninspiring social life, and sentimental relationship with his father, Brian, allow the character to remain rooted in an ordinary and realistic life. This helps add a sense of resonance to the protagonist even as he remains surrounded by an otherwise fantastical world.
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