By some curious dint of mathematics, one of life’s greatest pleasures is coming across something that is just a little bit better than it needs to be. It’s such rarity, such a treat – and to pessimists, such a shock to the system – that it becomes disproportionately, though still genuinely, delightful.
Such a phenomenon is Death Valley, a new Sunday night comedy drama in which an amateur sleuth helps the police solve crimes in a bucolic village – usually English, this time Welsh – with an astronomically high murder rate and a suspect under every gooseberry bush and felt hat. So far, so Gently cum Midsomer cum Marple cum Agatha Raisin cum pull-up-a-chair-and-a-teacake-and-enjoy.
And it does hit that cosy spot. Timothy Spall, who I suspect was looking for a way to recharge his actorly batteries after putting every bit of power he had into his performance as Peter Farquhar in 2023’s harrowingThe Sixth Commandment, stars as the amateur sleuth, John Chapel. Chapel is a retired actor (if there ever is such a thing, darling!) who made his name in a long-running police procedural series as its eponymous detective, Caesar. The first episode opens, as the first episodes of new cosy crime series should, with a case so clear it couldn’tpossiblybe anything else: dead property developer slumped over his desk, a gun in his hand, obviously having killed himself.
But is it obvious? Why would a man planning such a thing have a lunch in his diary for the next day and a holiday booked for Dubai? DS Janie Mallowan (Gwyneth Keyworth), treading the fine line between perky and infuriating with nary a wobble (Chapel calls her “scintillatingly irritating”, which is both a perfect description and a mark of the writing quality), reckons she should at least ask the neighbours if they saw anything suspicious on the day he died. As a devotee of Caesar, she is awestruck when the first door she bangs on is answered by none other than Chapel himself. And Chapel knows it was murder. How? “Because actors observe.” The victim was an orderly man – a gunshot was too messy. And because “action is character” – and the victim was a considerate man, who designed bespoke birthday cards for his cleaner’s son and would never have left her to find his body when she was due in the next day.
Janie visits the deceased’s high-maintenance wife – “I shouldn’t cry. Just had my lids done” – to find out if he had any enemies. “Any beef with anyone? Doesn’t have to be big beef. Small beef. Mince?” Not even a meatball’s worth, is the reply.
And we’re off. A few red herrings scent the air but Chapel and Janie remain undeterred for long in their hunt for clues. (“I’m the inspiration,” says Chapel to Janie as he brings his actorly powers to bear on the evidence. “You’re the perspiration.”)
Why would a man who fired an electrician for wonky socket work in a show home not also fire a decorator for missing a patch of wall? Why would a woman with a love of traditional tea towels want to buy a new-build? A cancelled bacon delivery here, an empty foxglove bed there, a chance remark from a child of uncertain parentage over the way and soon the threads are drawn together to find the means, motive, opportunity – and the murderer (by the end of the hour). Their next adventure involves a member of Janie’s mum’s walking group dying in an apparent fall (guess what!) and is worth watching for many reasons, not least Mum’s description of the dead woman: “Too thin by half. And stubborn eyes.”
Within each case scenario are the longer arcs involving Chapel’s grief for his late wife and Janie’s struggles over the loss of her best friend, which season the jollity with something a little more piquant.
So, it’s Midsomer Murders –with jokes. It’s Rosemary and Thyme – but good. Or a pastoral Old Dogs New Tricks, if you prefer. Take your pick. It’s also witty and fun and bounces along with enough verve to get you past any footling objections you have to either form or content before they can make their way from brain to mouth. Not everything has to be The Wire. Sometimes you can just relax and enjoy a different thing done very well indeed.
Death Valley was on BBC One