It is now ten years since this completely batty series started and it is still as popular as ever, showing once again that there is no end to the capacity of the English viewing public for murders set in genteel villages. The doyenne of this kind of story is of course, Agatha Christie, with Miss Marple the quintessential spinster of this parish who never misses a trick and whose detective skills always find the murderer.
Caroline Graham wrote only seven Midsomer books which were rapidly used up by the television series and then the scriptwriters took over. The body count has rocketed in villages with names such as Badgers Drift, Midsomer Mallow and Midsomer Worthy, with the death count reaching at least four bodies per episode. Victimes were impaled on a pitchfork, shot with a bow and arrow, decapitated and in one bizarre episode, an obnoxious wine buff was bombarded with bottles of his expensive wines being hurled at him by a home made trebuchet while he lay helpless, pinned to the ground. Not a pretty sight as bottle after bottle of Chateau Neuf bounced off his head. New viewers should take note: if ever a village fair is taking place on a sunny Sunday afternoon, you can guarantee that a body will soon be found at the back of the coconut shy or fall out of the Punch and Judy tent. This sort of event always, but always ends with a gruesome death.
The list of actors who have taken part reads like a Who's Who of English Character Actors with well know names such as Timothy West, Simon Callow, Elizabeth Spriggs, Prunella Scales, Richard Briers, Hannah Gordon, George Baker all risking their lives to appear. The list is endless. A very young Orlando Bloom who sprang to fame as Legolas in Lord of the Rings, made an appearance as a cocky young lout in an early episode (he came to grief impaled on the aforementioned pitchfork).
Throughout all this murder and mayhem, calm, dependable and resolute, is DCI Tom Barnaby. In 
some ways he is rather similar to Ruth Rendell's creation, Inspector Wexford. They are both family men with long happy marriages which makes a change from the usual divorced, nerve wracked, maverick cops so often portrayed on TV. I have to say that his wife, Joyce, strikes me as being one of the most boring and mundane characters ever created and the actress who plays her, Jane Wymark, must surely get a bit fed up at times with the inane lines she is given (incidentally, Jane Wymark was at school with me so if she looks a but hunted at times I put that down to the effects of our convent educaction). Things do seem to happen to her though. In one episode she was buried under a rock fall when an old tunnel collapsed, another time witnessed a fellow actor in an am dram production having his throat cut, and while taking a painting class on the village green saw one of her her fellow pupils murdered. Though she gets very upset about all these dreadful events, a cup of tea seems to set her straight.
Their daughter, Cully (what is that short for? can anybody enlighten me?), seems to drift around with no particular aim in life and is almost as boring as her mother. At the beginning of the series she appeared to have aspirations to being an actress, but has also helped out in the local bookshop, driven the library van and worked in the Midsomer museum. Still, I suppose this was while she was 'resting' between auditions but her storyline appears to have petered out somewhat, though I understand she gets married in series 11. Who to, I ask myself?
John Nettles is simply wonderful as Barnaby. He exudes authority throughout the entire series and is just as charismatic as he was when he starred in Bergerac some twenty years ago. I was addicted to this series and never missed an episode. Bergerac was, of course, the maverick, divorced, cop that I have mentioned as being the norm. Throw in that he was also a recovering alcholic with an ex-wife who, while purporting to hate him, was obviously still in love with him, a whinging girlfried who always seemed to wear jackets with shoulder pads at least two sizes too big for her (she ended up getting murdered eventually), give him a vintage sports car to drive and put him at odds with his superior, and you have the blue print for a successful TV series. Watching it again a few years ago, courtesy of DVD, it seemed to creak a bit and lacked pace but John Nettles was still gorgeous.
According to a fan's website Midsomer Murders is set to go on for at least another two years with a Christmas special coming up (stabbed to death with a bit of holly perhaps, or poisoned by rum sauce?) so I have plenty to look forward to.
