Vintage Midsomer from the first Season!
Written In Blood
It’s Midsomer’s cleaners you have to feel sorry for.
I wonder if, during their job interview, they’re warned that at some point in
their career they will inevitably discover the murdered corpse of one of their
employers. The thing to do is scream at the top of their voice even though
nobody else is in the house! In this second ever episode the battered body of
Gerald Hadleigh is discovered by his unfortunate cleaner the morning after a
somewhat tense writer’s group meeting. Hadleigh turns out to be someone who
nobody really knew- even his fellow authors only met him once a month which
seems a bit odd given how small the village of Midsomer Worthy is. Mind you
most people seem to move about under cover of darkness. The mystery of not just
who killed Hadleigh but who he was forms the spine of this storyline which
suggests that writers are even crazier than their characters.
It’s a full blooded tale alright that opens with a
flashback to a teenage boy shooting his father. It’s one of those openings you
forget until late in the episode when it shifts into relevant perspective. We
meet this writer’s circle who are given an unflattering -and therefore
interesting- portraits courtesy of a cast who really get their teeth into
matters. Yet when writer Max Jennings attends as a guest this seems to cause a
very strange reaction. Just what is the personal connection between Jennings
and Hadleigh- the latter seems terrified of this reunion and begs another member
of the group not to be left alone with him.
As befits a story about writers each of the group is
defined by their current work in progress. David Troughton’s Brian Clapper is
an unfit fortysomething comprehensive teacher who tries to speak to the kids at
what he perceives is their level. His drama groups session encourage a “coupe
de theatre` which rebounds on him later in a big way. It’s one of Troughton’s
juicy, shouty roles at which he excels while Clapper’s play is hilariously
quoted early on and seems to mostly consist of the word “scum”. Though his
story turns out to be on the periphery of the main case it’s constructed rather
like a play where he gets his comeuppance at the end.
Joanna David is the somewhat meek Amy Lyddiard,
penniless after her husband’s death and forced to share a gothic house with her
sister in law Honoria played with all the wild eyed relish Anna Massey can
command. Which is loads. She is always enormous value and plays to the hammy
qualities of this melodramatic character to the extent that near the end she is
chasing someone through the old house while brandishing a knife. Yes, a storm
also starts outside for no real reason other than because it makes it seem more
like a Hammer film, a trait accentuated when we peak inside the sealed bedroom
and it becomes The Shining!
Hadleigh has a secret life and a secret past but the
clues are well spaced even if they seem a little drawn out at times if you’ve
seen it before. Robert Swann has this role though we don’t see a lot of the
character, deliberately so. The cast is rounded out by John Sharpnel as the
self absorbed Max Jennings plus a couple of great cameo roles from Una Stubbs
as a drunk wife and Timothy Bateson as
wily solicitor.
Mind you Barnaby is not always quite the detective
he may seem to be. A comic sub plot running throughout the episode sees him
itching and scratching with some kind of allergic reaction but he never seems
to realise that this might have something to do with the cat he and his wife
are minding for daughter Cully! The viewer will have worked this out right
away, the case itself definitely not!
Death of a Hollow Man
This episode opens with a flourish of religious music,
an elderly lady looking up at a statue before an intruder kills her. It is not
apparent for some time what link this has to a local theatre production of Amadeus.
What we do enjoy though are the rivalries and falls outs between the players
meaning that at times it feels like watching two productions together. I
suppose your enjoyment partly depends on how absorbed you may be by the self-
absorbedness of the amateur actors but this is a class cast who bring these
characters alive.
Bernard Hepton is on top form as the delusional
director Harold Winstanley who clearly believes he is the world’s greatest
director as he name drops with glee while haranguing the hard working company. Equally
fascinating is Nicholas Le Prevost as the equally self centred Essyln
Carmichael who’s ex wife Rosa played with fiery relish by Sarah Badel is full
of anger over the way the marriage ended. The woman murdered at the start is
Esslyn’s cousin. Winstanley also has a
timid assistant called Dierdrie who is played with a series of nervous tics by Janine
Duvitski.
Unlike a lot of tv episodes set in a theatre, `Death of a Hollow Man` attempts to more fully immerse the fictional actor’s production into the narrative so much so that Peter Shaffer, the writer of Amadeus, gets a co-credit here. Its also a fairly convincing production with care taken to make it really look and feel like a play people would go and see. Yet we also witness the tension between the actors thanks to some well chosen directorial choices by Jeremy Silberston.
Being part of this theatre group is the first of
many, many hobbies Joyce Barnaby will undertake over the coming years to the
point where it began to look silly but this time it is properly weaved in. Her
reaction of shock when she witnesses the key murder on stage is also something
that wasn’t later repeated. Joyce must just have got hardened to all the
violence!
Esslyn’s on stage death is dramatic enough but I’m
not the only viewer who found the later explanation about the tape and razor
blade a little unlikely especially as at every other moment of the episode
Harold is in a world of his own. I just can’t see him being capable of such a
calculated real life act even if the method would appeal to his melodramatic
sense. Also the link at the end between the first murder and the statues is a little vague.
Still it’s nice to see a vintage floppy disk!
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