This screen adaptation of Bea Roberts’s play has a compelling concept but yields disappointing results

Based on a play – a painfully obvious fact given the stiltedness of the dialogue – by Bea Roberts, this small-scale British drama revolves almost entirely around two characters who are followed over a number of years. The early scenes, set in 2001, establish the affectionate friendship between Devon dairy farmer Michael (David Fielder), recently widowed and judging by the beard eligible for a pension soon, and local veterinarian Jeff (Nigel Hastings), a younger man with a budding drink problem.

When foot-and-mouth disease reaches their neck of the moors, Jeff is compelled to put down Michael’s entire herd according to governmental guidelines. Michael tries to resist with an unloaded shotgun and some choice curse words aimed at the ministerial enforcers who accompany Jeff, but there’s no stopping the forces of change. As the years pass, agriculture itself comes under threat in a rural economy increasingly skewing towards offering hospitality for wealthy visitors who want to capture sunsets on Instagram rather than see where their meat and milk comes from.

It’s a shame that Paul Robinson’s direction and Fielder and Hastings’ performances fail to liberate the film from its stagy origins, because the core concept is pretty compelling. The incremental sociological shifts that have unfolded in rural Britain over the last 20 years or so are indeed fertile soil, ripe for dramatic ploughing. But Roberts’s screenplay only glancingly engages with the issues, in big brushstroke fashion. There are lots of problems that would have affected characters like Michael and Jeff that might have been germane, such as the impact of Brexit or resistance to the foxhunting ban.

Alas, the focus is on more quotidian, smaller-scale travails, such as Michael’s fundamental loneliness and Jeff’s crumbling marriage, although the self-imposed restriction to just two speaking parts undermines the exploration of those arcs in any depth. Ultimately, the slushy musical score and prettified cinematography – everything seems to happen at magic hour – prove more irritating than enhancing. Even the title’s inelegant plod of monosyllables comes off as somehow annoying and pretentious.

And Then Come the Nightjars is released on 1 September in UK cinemas.

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