This Country creator Daisy May Cooper reveals why show must end

Hit BBC comedy This Country had to end because its creators were no longer able to remain anonymous.

Siblings Daisy May Cooper and Charlie Cooper wrote the mockumentary based on their own experiences of growing up in Cirencester, Gloucestershire.

The show is set to finish after its upcoming third series, although they have not ruled out reuniting for a special episode.

Daisy May told Radio Times: “The difficult thing now (after the success of the first two series) is that we can’t be anonymous any more.

“We can’t go to the pub like we used to and just watch or listen to people, and writing the third series we definitely didn’t have so many of those unique bits.

“You are only ever as good as your last series, and we felt the pressure writing this one.”

The Bafta-winning BBC Three series is set in a fictional and unnamed Cotswolds town, but is filmed in and around Northleach.

It centres on the lives of cousins Kerry and Lee “Kurtan” Mucklowe, played by Daisy May and Charlie, and their friends and family.

Daisy May said they were “ready to try to write new stuff” outside of This Country.

The opening episode of the new series is a tribute to their friend and co-star Michael Sleggs.

Sleggs, who played Michael “Slugs” Slugette in the show, died in July 2019 aged 33 after suffering heart failure.

She said: “Michael was always a kind of misfit in Cirencester, he was plagued with health problems, but he had a wicked sense of humour.

“He was a pain in the arse a lot of the time, but we just adored him, he was our pain in the arse.

“We’d get cornered by him in town, and would always go: ‘Oh shit, it’s Slugs…’ So we cast him, he was so unique.”

The full interview is in Radio Times, out now.

This Country starts on Monday February 17.