Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Neil Dudgeon, Nick Hendrix, Fiona Dolman, Annette Badland, Camilla Arfwedson, Ella Blainska, Kelly Brook, Michael Fox, Liz Fraser, Gabrielle Glaister, Nick Hancock, Colin McFarlane, Maya Sondhi, Fenella Woolgar.
To have and to hold…Till Death Do Us Part, sometimes the symbolic words take on extra meaning, especially when a marriage is short-lived, something that is arguably a possibility when the ceremony is held in the vicinity of Midsomer.
Even for Midsomer Murders though, the 2018 episode, Till Death Do Us Part must contain a first, or at least one that captures the enormity of unspoken vows, as the bride is killed off before the story even breaks sweat; it is in this delightful aspect that the armchair detective is given a puzzle to agitate the brain cells even before the opening credits role.
If Midsomer Murders is apt to show, is the varying ways and reasons to why a person is left to contemplate the afterlife as they are placed upon the morgue table, and whilst it is a compliment to the ingenious nature to how murder can be achieved, there is, as in the case of this particular episode, that it leaves a nasty taste in the air for the souls surrounding and surviving the dearly departed.
Life in Midsomer is never straight forward, an attraction that has bound the series to the multitude of fans that it possesses and as Till Death Do Us Part eagerly throws several angles of intrigue into the mix, what the viewer gains is more of an insight into the nature of a tight knit community that knows too much about each other’s business and the best way to destroy a person’s reputation. It is in this theatrical cauldron, adorned by beautiful houses, the sense of the timeless unhurriedly passing by, that a wedding perhaps makes the best setting for confrontation; a metaphor for the way we see the social occasion full of love and memories, but for some a reminder of what has been lost.
It is to this that the inclusion of Nick Hancock, regretfully rarely seen on television for many years, comes to the fore as the disgraced former accountant Phil Webster, the superb Liz Fraser in one of her final roles before her own death in 2018, and now series regular Annette Badland, who gives a wonderful performance as the devilishly astute pathologist Fleur Perkins, that Helen Jenkins’ script takes root, a vow of perspective enjoyed and an audacious act of murder given a life-long commitment to.
To have and to hold, in the firm grip of death, is where we ultimately end up; and one that the makers of Midsomer Murders revel in placing its audience.
Ian D. Hall