"I can't believe a murder happened here," says one of the characters in Dying Art, an upcoming episode of Midsomer Murders.
Really? Really??
DCI Barnaby (right) and DS Nelson must unravel the endlessly creative ways in which people are dispatched in Midsomer Murders.
A far more realistic observation about the famously deadly English county would go something like: "I can't believe we've gone a whole 20 minutes without yet another outlandishly grisly homicide being discovered."
But therein, of course, lies much of the fun in Midsomer Murders. Despite a body count that routinely reaches Shakespearean proportions, the locals – and coppers – all apparently inhabit parallel universes, never becoming aware of the mounting body count in adjoining villages, putting two and two together and considering a permanent move somewhere a little safer. Like Kabul.
The murderous mayhem is all precisely calibrated. Generally, there are three killings before DCI Barnaby and DS Nelson can dispose of a bucket load of red herrings and finally unmask the killer, who occasionally turns out to be the person you had pegged all along but just as often turns out to be the most ludicrously unlikely perpetrator. You can guarantee everyone is at some point a suspect, with motive and opportunity aplenty.
Central to the show's appeal are the endlessly creative ways in which the victims are dispatched. A common-or-garden shooting or stabbing rarely cuts it in Midsomer. To rate the attention of Barnaby and Nelson requires a far greater level of homicidal artistry.
Over the years, victims have been clubbed, drugged, stabbed and crushed. Particular favourites include death by frog poisoning, death by tumble drier and death after being stapled to the ground with croquet hoops and battered with catapult-launched bottles of wine. Genius.
The countryside is as much a character in the show as the other regulars. It's a perception that is heightened by the appearance of villages with names like Pandlefoot Bailey, Midsomer Cicely and Morton Shallows – all sounding like bit players from a Dickens novel.
Much of the charm comes from the regularised way in which each episode unfolds, embracing cliche and formula without ever quite tipping over into farce.
Dying Art is a classic of the genre, built around the jealousy, greed, passion and hatred stirred up by the opening of a new sculpture park in yet another idyllic village.
The unknown killer sets the ball rolling with the spectacular murder of the park's owner. Automatically, pretty much everyone in the village is a potential suspect and Barnaby and Nelson set about interviewing each of them in a series of set pieces.
Complications reveal themselves, fresh connections emerge and secret sexual liaisons bubble to the surface until, just like a Number 18 bus, murder number two comes along, eliminating a prime suspect in killing number one.
Finally, the light dawns for our two heroes and there is just time for one more homicide before the pair wraps it up in time to get home for tea and scones.
"Every day is different. You never know what the next case is going to bring," opines Nelson at one point, reflecting on the joys of police work. He is of course dead wrong. Every day is pretty much the same in Midsomer – and that's why, after 18 series and innumerable cast changes, we still love it.
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