Midsomer Murders

Midsomer Murders is a British mystery television series, adapted by Anthony Horowitz and Douglas Watkinson from the novels in the Chief Inspector Barnaby book series created by Caroline Graham. It has been broadcast on the ITV network since its premiere on 23 March 1997. The series focuses on various murder cases that take place within small country villages across the fictional English county of Midsomer, and the efforts of the senior police detective and his partner within the fictional Midsomer Constabulary to solve the crime by determining who the culprit is and the motive for their actions. It differs from other detective dramas in featuring a mixture of lighthearted whimsy and dark humour, as well as a notable soundtrack with a title theme that includes a theremin.

The programme has featured two lead stars: from its premiere in 1997, John Nettles as Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) Tom Barnaby, until his retirement from the drama in February 2011; then Neil Dudgeon as DCI John Barnaby, Tom's younger cousin, since March 2011. Both main stars have featured a list of supporting actors who worked alongside them, including Jane Wymark, Barry Jackson, Daniel Casey, John Hopkins, Jason Hughes, Gwilym Lee, and Nick Hendrix. Midsomer Murders remains a popular feature in British television schedules and has been broadcast internationally in over 200 countries and territories.

Summary

Midsomer Murders is a detective drama<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> set in England. The stories revolve around the efforts of Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby, and later his successor, cousin John Barnaby, to solve numerous murders that take place in the picturesque but deadly villages of the fictional county of Midsomer. The Barnabys have worked with several different sergeants throughout the run of the show: Detective Sergeant (DS) Gavin Troy (Daniel Casey), DS Dan Scott (John Hopkins), DS Ben Jones (Jason Hughes), DS Charlie Nelson (Gwilym Lee) and DS Jamie Winter (Nick Hendrix).

Production

Filming of Midsomer Murders began in the autumn of 1996, and the first episode, "The Killings at Badger's Drift", was broadcast in the United Kingdom on 23 March 1997. This inaugural episode was the highest-rated single drama programme of 1997, watched by 13.5 million viewers.<ref name="Morgan">Template:Cite newsTemplate:Cbignore</ref> Throughout its run, the feature-length drama has attracted many well-known accomplished actors from the stage and screen in guest-starring roles.

Anthony Horowitz and the original producers, Betty Willingale and Brian True-May, created the series. Horowitz adapted the majority of the early episodes from the original works by Caroline Graham. Current writers include Helen Jenkins, Jeff Povey, Nicholas Hicks-Beach, Julia Gilbert and Maria Ward.

Initially John Nettles acted in the role of Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby. Nettles' character retired at the end of 2010, after the 13th series of eight episodes; his last episode was "Fit for Murder". Neil Dudgeon replaced him in the 14th series, playing Tom Barnaby's cousin, DCI John Barnaby,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> who was seen in a series 13 episode, "The Sword of Guillaume".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Dudgeon made his first appearance in Midsomer Murders in the series 4 episode "Garden of Death", in which he played the role of a tongue-in-cheek gardener, Daniel Bolt, rather interested in sex.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Series 20 began in the UK on ITV on 10 March 2019, with episode 1, "The Ghosts of Causton Abbey".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In the US, the entire six-episode series was immediately released on the streaming services Acorn TV and BritBox,<ref name="Mitchell">Template:Cite web</ref> and became available on Netflix after the UK broadcast schedule had finished. The show was removed from Netflix in October 2019; only the first 19 series had been shown on the service. Series 20 onward have never been shown on Netflix in US or Canada.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> As of January, 2021, series 1–20 can be seen in the US on IMDb TV and Tubi TV.

The show's official social media confirmed that production of series 21 began in March 2019.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> As with series 20, series 21 was initially released in the USA. It premiered on Acorn TV and BritBox on 1 December 2019, before airing in the UK in January 2020.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Published in "The Cinemaholic" in Aug 2024, they have "learned that the network has joined Acorn TV to renew Midsomer Murders for its twenty-fifth season. The instalment’s filming began in the United Kingdom in the spring of 2024."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Setting

Midsomer is a fictional English county. The county town is Causton, a medium-sized town where Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby lives with his wife and where the Criminal Investigation Department is located. Much of the popularity of the series arises from the incongruity of sudden violence in a picturesque and peaceful rural setting. Various clues in several episodes hint that Midsomer might actually cover the areas of Berkshire and part of northern Hampshire. This may be supported by the episode "Dead in the Water" where a body is found in the River Thames.<ref>Death on the Waterways by Allan Scott-Davies; ISBN 978-0-7524-5966-0; c2011; page 153</ref>

Many of the villages and small towns of the county have the word "Midsomer" in their name; this is inspired in part by the real county of Somerset, and specifically, its actual town of Midsomer Norton, and became a naming convention within the show. Midsomer Wellow and Causton are derived from the names of real Somerset villages Wellow and Corston.

Each episode usually contains several murders, the high body count being a well-known feature of the show.<ref name="Lanzagorta">Template:Cite web</ref> Despite this, the culprit is almost never a serial killer—very frequently the murderer is driven by circumstance to compound his or her crimes, and keeps killing to cover up the original murder.<ref name="Lanzagorta" />

Humour is a main feature of the series. There is often dark comedy, such as a woman being murdered with a wheel of cheese,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and many scenes are examples of "dramedy" (comic drama or dramatic comedy). According to Radio Times when describing the episode "Death and the Divas" (series 15, episode 4): "Midsomer Murders never takes itself too seriously but here it's got its tongue so far into its cheek, it hurts."<ref name="RT">Template:Cite web</ref>

Nostalgia has also been a feature of the show, especially in its Nettles era. Most episodes have been set in hermetic rural villages of a kind that were already changing rapidly by the time the series began, Nettles opined in a 2003 interview.<ref name="Prescott">Template:Cite news Template:Open access</ref> The old-fashioned settings are true to the Graham novels: "Although the books are set in the present", wrote one reviewer, Graham's country villages "seem to come from another time".<ref name="O'Hare">Template:Cite news Template:Open access</ref> "The spirit is obviously of the '50s", Nettles remarked, and the less crowded, less complicated village/world was clearly part of the books' appeal.<ref name="O'Hare" />

Filming locations

Causton is represented by a number of towns including Thame and Wallingford, in Oxfordshire.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The Six Bells, a pub in Warborough, Oxfordshire,<ref>Template:Cite newsTemplate:Cbignore</ref> repeatedly features as the Black Swan in the Midsomer village of Badger's Drift.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Bull & Butcher, the village pub in Turville, Buckinghamshire, featured in both "Murder on St. Malley's Day" (renamed as The Chalk and Gown) and in "Schooled in Murder" (renamed as The Spotted Cow).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Filming took place on Sunday 11 August 2013 at White Waltham Airfield, southwest of Maidenhead, for episode 4 of Series 16, "The Flying Club".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The Buckinghamshire tourism authority announced in 2021 the launching of three themed tours of locations in the county that have been used to film the series.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In "The Killings of Copenhagen" – number five in the sixteenth series and the 100th episode overall<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> – several scenes are filmed on location in central Copenhagen, like Rådhuspladsen ("the City Hall Square"), Nyhavn ("New Port") with its canal and old colourful houses, a Danish countryside church, and at the circular courtyard inside the Copenhagen Police Headquarters building.<ref>Picture of the round "police square" and some of the episode's main actors at midsomermurders.org Template:Webarchive.</ref> The murder in Copenhagen is one of three within the entire series (until episode 114, at least) that take place outside the fictional county of Midsomer, the others being in Wales where DCI Tom Barnaby (John Nettles) and DS Ben Jones (Jason Hughes) travel in "Death and Dust" and Brighton where Inspector John Barnaby (Neil Dudgeon) is introduced.

Characters

Table key: Template:Color box Template:Color box Template:Color box

Characters and the series where they appeared

Character	Actor	Series
		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22
DCI Tom Barnaby	John Nettles	Main
Joyce Barnaby	Jane Wymark	Main
DS Gavin Troy	Daniel Casey	Main										G
Dr. George Bullard	Barry Jackson	Main	R	G	Main	R	Main
Dr. Dan Peterson	Toby Jones		R	Main
DS Daniel Scott	John Hopkins							Main
DS Benjamin Jones	Jason Hughes									Main										G
DC Gail Stephens	Kirsty Dillon										R	Main
DCI John Barnaby	Neil Dudgeon													R	Main
Sarah Barnaby	Fiona Dolman														Main
Dr. Kate Wilding	Tamzin Malleson														R	Main
DS Charlie Nelson	Gwilym Lee																Main
Dr. Kam Karimore	Manjinder Virk																		Main
DS Jamie Winter	Nick Hendrix																			Main
Dr. Fleur Perkins	Annette Badland																				Main

Episodes

Template:Main The pilot episode of Midsomer Murders was shown on 23 March 1997. 140 episodes have been produced across 24 series. As of 10 November 2024, 136 episodes have been broadcast in the UK, comprising 23 series. New series may air in different territories before the UK. Air dates may vary by region. List of Midsomer Murders episodes

20th anniversary special

In June 2019, British-American streaming service Acorn TV began streaming a 20th Anniversary Special presented by John Nettles.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The one-hour documentary brings together former and current actors on the show as well as producers and others working behind the scene to discuss memorable moments from the past 20 series and the peculiar quirks that have made the show a success.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

25th anniversary documentary

In May 2022, ITV announced that there would be a documentary celebrating the show's 25th anniversary.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Entitled Midsomer Murders – 25 Years of Mayhem it featured contributions from cast members including John Nettles, Neil Dudgeon, Jane Wymark, Fiona Dolman, Daniel Casey, Jason Hughes and Annette Badland, as well as writer Jeff Povey and producer Ian Strachan. It also delved behind the scenes of filming series 23 and highlighted pre-fame appearances by actors such as Orlando Bloom and Henry Cavill.

ITV subsequently announced that the one-hour documentary would air on the channel on Sunday 29 May 2022 at 7pm.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>Template:Needs update

Controversy

In March 2011, series producer Brian True-May was suspended by All3Media after telling the TV listings magazine Radio Times that the programme did not have any non-white characters because the series was "the last bastion of Englishness and I want to keep it that way". When challenged about the term "Englishness" and whether that would exclude ethnic minorities, True-May responded: "Well, it should do, and maybe I'm not politically correct." He later went on to say that he wanted to make a programme "that appeals to a certain audience, which seems to succeed." True-May's comments were investigated by the production company.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He was reinstated, having apologised "if his remarks gave unintended offence to any viewers", but subsequently stepped down as producer. ITV said it was "shocked and appalled" at True-May's comments, which were "absolutely not shared by anyone at ITV".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

True-May's replacement, Jo Wright, confirmed that she was committed to on-screen diversity when she took over the helm, saying: "I feel strongly that a range of ethnic groups should be represented on screen. And that will be reflected in some of the episodes in the new series with key guest casting. I will cast the series in the same way as I always do, by starting with the best script. And a good script will include a variety of different characters."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In series 15, Asian actors played central characters for the first time, in the episode "Written in the Stars".<ref>Template:Cite webTemplate:Cbignore</ref> Black characters also began to appear starting in that series. Beginning with series 18, the show gained an Asian member for its main cast: pathologist Kam Karimore, played by Manjinder Virk.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> However, she left at the end of series 19.

Broadcast

In 2004, Midsomer Murders was among the three most-sold British TV shows worldwide, whether as TV programming or DVD.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Template:As of, Midsomer Murders had been sold to more than 200 countries around the world.<ref name="Morgan" />

In Australia, first-run episodes and repeats are screened on the national free-to-air network ABC with repeats also shown on the Nine Network channel, 9Gem. The series was originally only aired on the Nine Network. Repeat screenings are also aired on the subscription channels UKTV and 13th Street. A measure of the success of the series in Australia is that repeats of the series still rate highly and often feature in the nation's top twenty shows in national surveys.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In Canada, the series is broadcast on TVOntario and Book Television in Ontario, on Knowledge in British Columbia, and via American PBS channels available throughout southern parts of Canada. Template:As of, the first thirteen series are currently available in Canada on Amazon Prime Video, while only series 21 is available on Britbox. The first nineteen series are also available on streaming service/app Tubi and Acorn.

In Ireland, the series is aired on Virgin Media Three every Monday night at 8 pm. It is one of the channel's highest-rated shows.

In New Zealand, the series was broadcast on TVNZ 1 and it was broadcast for a number of years on the free-to-air channel Prime.

In the United States, the series was first aired by A&E, which broadcast "The Killings at Badger's Drift" on 28 June 1998 and followed with the next four episodes over the 1998–99 series.<ref name="O'Hare" /> The show remained on A&E for many years until it was syndicated by American Public Television for broadcast on public television stations. All 24 series are currently available on the streaming service Acorn TV, which also offers the programme in Canada. The show was also broadcast on Ion Mystery and is currently on Ion Plus, and it has a dedicated channel on the streaming service Pluto TV.

The Paramount Channel broadcasts episode reruns daily.

PBS also occasionally shows Midsomer Murders on some stations from time to time.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Soundtracks

Composed by Jim Parker, the main theme is a moderate-tempo waltz, performed (primarily though not exclusively) on an unusual electronic musical instrument, the theremin, which has a sound not unlike a low whistle or a human voice. The theremin part was played by Celia Sheen (1940–2011). From the 14th series onwards the soundtrack was altered so that during the closing titles a standardised version of the theme is played on a solo violin in place of the theremin. Occasionally a version with a longer introduction opens the show, using a flute rather than a theremin as the lead instrument.

The closing theme for "The Scarecrow Murders", shown on 29 May 2022 to celebrate 25 years, was a more jovial clarinet version.

Multiple soundtrack CDs have been released so farTemplate:When?, containing versions of the theme and musical cues from various series.

Home media

All 140 episodes have been released in the US (Region 1) and in the UK (Region 2) including three Christmas specials, by Acorn Media. The first 18 series and "Part 1" of series 19 of Midsomer Murders have been released in Australia<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and New Zealand (Region 4).

Note that episodes 1 to 100 were originally released as 25 DVD "sets", which were not in chronological order and are now discontinued. They have been re-released in 2015 as a chronological "series" 1 to 16 in redesigned packages. To confuse fans further, Costco Warehouses sold 5 abbreviated (region 1) sets with one less disc, but used the same "set" numberings even though they did not match the retail "sets".

Blue-ray discs were released for "Sets" 17 through 25 and "Series" 16 through 24, picking up where the "sets" left off but not re-issuing the "sets" in redesigned packages like the DVDs did.

In January 2006, Midsomer Murders started a DVD and Magazine Collection, available at newsagents in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the UK.Template:Citation needed

Acorn Media had released DVD chronological order collections of Midsomer Murders in North America, which are:

• The Early Cases 10 disc collection of 18 episodes includes the pilot episode and those of series one, two, three, and four (except the last episode), as well as a bonus disc featuring a behind-the-scenes documentary.
• Acorn's "Barnaby's Casebook" 10-disc collection has 17 episodes, including the last episode of series four, followed by those of series five, six, and seven.
• Acorn's "Village Case Files" 8-disc collection includes the 16 episodes of series eight, and nine; and a 4-minute bonus clip from series one.
• Acorn's "Mayhem & Mystery" 15 disc collection includes the 17 episodes of series ten and eleven.
• Acorn's "Tom Barnaby's Last Cases" 15 disc collection includes the 17 episodes of series twelve and thirteen.

Below table are the release dates for complete series sets in both Australia Region 4 and the United Kingdom Region 2.

	Discs	Region 4	Region 2	Region 1
Complete series 1	3	18 August 2006	–	30 July 2013
Complete series 2	3	3 July 2007	–	30 July 2013
The Complete Series One and Two	6	–	6 April 2009	–
Complete series 3	2	3 July 2007	–	30 July 2013
Complete series 4	3	11 August 2008	–	30 July 2013
The Complete Series Three and Four	6	–	11 May 2009
Complete series 5	3	11 August 2008	–	30 July 2013
Complete series 6	3	11 August 2008	–	30 July 2013
The Complete Series Five and Six	6	–	1 June 2009
Complete series 7	4 (Region 4) 6 (Region 2)	3 November 2010	6 July 2009	30 July 2013
Complete series 8	4 (Region 4) 6 (Region 2)	3 November 2010	3 August 2009	30 July 2013
Complete series 9	4 (Region 4) 6 (Region 2)	3 November 2010	7 September 2009	30 July 2013
Complete series 10	5 (Region 4) 6 (Region 2)	4 February 2015	5 October 2009	30 July 2013
Complete series 11	5 (Region 4) 6 (Region 2)	4 February 2015	23 August 2010	30 July 2013
Complete series 12	6	4 February 2015	17 April 2011	30 July 2013
Complete series 13	5 (Region 4) 6 (Region 2)	4 February 2015	9 May 2011	30 July 2013
Complete series 14	4 (Region 4) 6 (Region 2)	9 March 2016	2 April 2012	30 July 2013
Complete series 15	4 (Region 4) 6 (Region 2)	9 March 2016	6 May 2013	30 July 2013
Complete series 16	4 (Region 4) 5 (Region 2)	22 March 2017	7 July 2014	16 Sep 2014
Complete series 17	3 (Region 4) 4 (Region 2)	22 March 2017	8 June 2015	15 Sep 2015
Complete series 18	4 (Region 4) 2 (Region 2)	4 October 2017	16 May 2016	20 Sep 2016
Complete series 19	4 (Region 4) 2 (Region 2)	15 August 2018	21 May 2018	pt.1 27 Jun 2017 pt.2 24 Oct 2017
Complete series 20	4 (Region 4) 2 (Region 2)	22 July 2020<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	2 December 2019<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	25 Sep 2018
Complete series 21	4 (Region 4) 2 (Region 2)	6 April 2022<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	5 April 2021<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	7 April 2020<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The Complete series 1–4 (Limited Edition)	10	2 August 2017	–
The Complete series 5–8 (Limited Edition)	14	2 August 2017	–
The Complete series 9–12 (Limited Edition)	19	11 April 2018	–
The Complete series 13–16 (Limited Edition)	16	11 April 2018	–
The Complete series 17-20 (Limited Edition)	15	16 September 2020<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
series 1–10	33	25 October 2017	–
The Entire First 20 series (Limited Edition)	72	21 July 2021<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	–

Books

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External links

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