Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Neil Dudgeon, Nick Hendrix, Fiona Dolman, Annette Badland, Rachel Stirling, Adrian Edmondson, Caroline Quentin, Stuart Milligan, Paul Bazely, Lee Byford, Vanessa Emme, Greg Lockett, Aki Omoshaybi, Georgina Rich, Ed White, Chris Wilson.

A country house murder, what could be more riveting for a party of guests to get their minds around when a storm plunges the home into darkness and the torrents of rain threaten to overwhelm the senses?

There is an element of the enigmatic, the ethereal and timeless when a writer places their observations into the world of the lonely house full of secrets in some neglected part of the country.

Unlike the grim reality of the murders framed by television when placed in the world of the terraced housing estate, the truth of the everyday life when it is confronted by the reality of the blight that comes in the form of government inaction and neglect, where every day is fraught with more reasons in which the inexcusable act of murder becomes part of a systematic failure by those without compassion for their fellow citizen and is arguably more prevalent when looked at as a whole; the country house murder is more elaborate, it is staged with cryptic assuredness, and for that it has its own place in the belief of a being a favourite of the amateur armchair detective.

There are many reasons for murder, money being a chief instigator of the loss of life by nefarious means, but mostly it comes down to jealousy and the craving for revenge, and whilst that is the case in the Midsomer Murders episode of Happy Families, what is enlightening is the use of envy as a protectiveness to hold what is dearly wanted, that of the life of an unborn child.

There is a lot to admire in Happy Families, not only for the setting which recalls the tropes of Agatha Christie’s finest works, but for the addition to the cast of Rachel Sterling as Eleanor Karras, the great Adrian Edmondson as the self-confessed amateur detective, Hugo Wells, who dabbles under the weight of the dramatic interloper, and Caroline Quentin as his wife, and mystery writer, Helen Welles who has her own part to play in the proceedings and discovery of the secret at hand.

In an era when television directors must be more inventive than ever on how to get the right shot and keep the tense atmosphere relevant, this episode of the long running and hugely popular police drama, reaches a new height of exploration, of resourcefulness and imagination. A world of the enigmatic, of the puzzling, but one that should always be seen as the counterpart to the grim reality endured by many outside of that social position. 

Ian D. Hall