Divian Ladwa

Hugh and Russell find nothing in Detectorists (2014), but they keep coming back. Divian Ladwa plays Hugh alongside Pearce Quigley’s Russell, in a metal-detecting club whose meetings are treated as important public business. We grew fond of Hugh because that repeated, unrewarded attendance makes his attachment to the club touching. Ladwa’s sweetness belongs in Mackenzie Crook’s affectionate comedy, where a supporting character need not cause a crisis to earn his place.

Early film roles in Saxon (2007) and 8 Minutes Idle (2012) preceded the two parts that established him: Hugh and Mantosh Brierley in Garth Davis’s Lion (2016). Mantosh is the adoptive brother, a supporting part that asks for something harder than Hugh’s amiability. The move from sweetness to hurt is convincing, and Ladwa makes the family’s troubles worth attending to. Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman do much of the work of sustaining the adult drama, which repeats itself. The film is worth an evening, but its difficulties cannot all be solved by sympathetic acting.

The subsequent parts keep him among ensembles, from Uzman in Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) to Dr Chillip in Armando Iannucci’s The Personal History of David Copperfield (2019). The latter pairs him with Patel again. In Emma Holly Jones’s Mr. Malcolm’s List (2022), he returns to the footman John, having played him in the short. Hugh remains the more useful introduction because repeated visits let that apparently modest character become familiar.

Crook is the collaborator we would return to first, because his writing makes room for Hugh without insisting on a large personal story. The slight plots can test our patience, but the affection for club members such as Hugh and Russell is worth that patience. It also gives Ladwa’s gentleness a purpose within the comedy. Start with Detectorists, and allow him time to become one of the people whose attendance matters.