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 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 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 Gavin Troy, DS Dan Scott, DS Ben Jones, DS Charlie Nelson and DS Jamie Winter.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. 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, who was seen in a series 13 episode, "The Sword of Guillaume". 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.
Series 20 began in the UK on ITV on 10 March 2019, with episode 1, "The Ghosts of Causton Abbey". In the US, the entire six-episode series was immediately released on the streaming services Acorn TV and BritBox, 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. 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. 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.
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 2025."
In October 2025, ITV announced that a 26th series had been commissioned.
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.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. 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.
Humour is a main feature of the series. There is often dark comedy, such as a woman being murdered with a wheel of cheese, and many scenes are examples of "dramedy". According to Radio Times when describing the episode "Death and the Divas" : "Midsomer Murders never takes itself too seriously but here it's got its tongue so far into its cheek, it hurts."
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. 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". "The spirit is obviously of the '50s", Nettles remarked, and the less crowded, less complicated village/world was clearly part of the books' appeal.
Filming locations
Causton is represented by a number of towns including Thame and Wallingford, in Oxfordshire.The Six Bells, a pub in Warborough, Oxfordshire, repeatedly features as the Black Swan in the Midsomer village of Badger's Drift. The Bull & Butcher, the village pub in Turville, Buckinghamshire, featured in both "Murder on St. Malley's Day" and in "Schooled in Murder".
Filming took place on Sunday 11 August 2013 at White Waltham Airfield, southwest of Maidenhead, for episode 4 of Series 16, "The Flying Club".
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.
In "The Killings of Copenhagen" – number five in the sixteenth series and the 100th episode overall – several scenes are filmed on location in central Copenhagen, like Rådhuspladsen, Nyhavn with its canal and old colourful houses, a Danish countryside church, and at the circular courtyard inside the Copenhagen Police Headquarters building. The murder in Copenhagen is one of three within the entire series that take place outside the fictional county of Midsomer, the others being in Wales where DCI Tom Barnaby and DS Ben Jones travel in "Death and Dust" and Brighton where Inspector John Barnaby is introduced.
Characters
Episodes
The pilot episode of Midsomer Murders was shown on 23 March 1997. 140 episodes have been produced across 24 series. As of 30 December 2025, 138 episodes have been broadcast in the UK, comprising 24 series. New series may air in different territories before the UK. Air dates may vary by region.20th anniversary special
In June 2019, British-American streaming service Acorn TV began streaming a 20th Anniversary Special presented by John Nettles. 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.25th anniversary documentary
In May 2022, ITV announced that there would be a documentary celebrating the show's 25th anniversary.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.
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. 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".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." In series 15, Asian actors played central characters for the first time, in the episode "Written in the Stars". 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. However, she left at the end of series 19.