Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Neil Dudgeon, Nick Hendrix, Fiona Dolman, Annette Badland, Alexander Hanson, Clive Rowe, Kevin Whately, Samantha Spiro, Shobna Gulati, Jenna Russell, Jane Bertish, David Rubin, Dylan Wood, Tessa Wong, Matthew Bose, Ben Godard.
“A policeman’s lot is not a happy one…”
No matter how hard people within certain professions try, what they see whilst they are holding communities together, stopping cities from becoming zones overrun by fear, hate, damnation, they can never truly see the sparkle of a day without something reminding them that underneath it all the spectre of humanity’s more base instincts will rise to the surface and threaten to pour oil over small fires burning, will make any compulsion to sing one that becomes a mumble of forgotten promises in front of the paying audience.
A police officer’s life is strained at best, like nurses, prison officers, teachers, we forget the pressure they are under, and even when they find time to indulge in a passion, the prospect is they will become embroiled within a case that marks out the time of a murderer’s fancy.
That is how most television procedural dramas work, show the home life, even a happy, loving, and enduring one, and underneath there is always the moment for which For Death Prepare, as Midsomer Murders aptly presents as one of the county’s leading amateur companies rehearses for their latest show of Gilbert & Sullivan work.
For Death Prepare has the feel though of a slight variation when it comes to the accustomed routine of one of Britain’s favourite and most successful detective dramas, and it is not only that the wonderful Fiona Dolman gets to have a more sizeable say in proceedings as she is part of the Operatic Society’s membership, not only because Kevin Whately appears in terrific form as one of the members being threatened, but because the murderer is so brilliantly cast that even if you deduce the identity, to feel the authority of the reasons why they have taken it upon themselves to murder is indeed exceptional.
Julia Gilbert’s screenplay is one of tantalising understated British excess, from the brilliance of presentation in the over-the-top haunting presence of the charismatic society leader, Phyllis Cuttle, played with charm and resounding poise by Samantha Spiro, to the unravelling of Fiona Dolman’s own personality within her character of Sarah Barnaby, there is so much to unpack within the dialogue that despite it being a case of murder, there is a verbal enjoyment to be found which makes the spectre of homicide even more melancholic and painful to absorb.
Opera is not every one’s cup of tea, it relies far too much on a sense of elitism, and yet when it has the ability to be shown as careworn, when the British Operetta is under threat from within, it is a prim and proper example of the country life we all wish to escape to, where small societies are given credence because of their structure and not because of their mass appeal in catering to cynics and critics alike.
For Death Prepare utilises that thought with precision and guile, a charming and murderous episode worthy of Midsomer Murders history.
Ian D. Hall