Caroline Graham & Midsomer Murders!

[goathunter]

Oct 3, 2010 14:38:46 GMT dem said:

Cully Barnaby is as gorgeous in this novel as she is in the adaptations,

I keep meaning to try one of the books. We've seen all the episodes of the TV series, some more than once. Cully is, IMO, the most annoying character on the TV shows. I hate virtually every scene she's in. She's condescending, disrespectful, and, if I may repeat myself, annoying.

Hunter

[dem]

Sabine Schreiner & Joan Street: edited by Antony Richards - Midsomer Murders on Location (Irregular Special Press 2010; originally as a limited edition, 2009).

Nikki Sims

Introduction

Midsomer County
The Midsomer County of Berkshire
The Midsomer County of Buckinghamshire
The Midsomer County of Hertfordshire
The Midsomer County of Oxfordshire

Places Index
Episodes Index

Blurb:

The majority of the pretty villages that make up Midsomer country are actually strewn over four counties — Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Oxfordshire. Here, in this best selling, fully updated and enlarged publication, is a comprehensive guide to the gorgeous locations used in filming the series.

From Aldbury to Windsor, this book, published in conjunction with the Midsomer Murders Society, surveys over one hundred of these picturesque locations, complete with filming anecdotes. However, it concentrates primarily on the historical aspects of each site, most of which are open to the public and worth a visit in their own right. The guide is fully indexed by county and episode, and covers everything from public houses to churches and stately homes. Midsomer Murders on Location is extensively illustrated and contains maps to assist the reader in planning their own visit.

This book is a must for all Midsomer Murders enthusiasts as well as those interested in visiting some of England’s finest countryside.

94 page booklet, published by the Midsomer Murders Society, covering 69 episodes from series' 1-12. Bucks and Oxfordshire locations predominate, Berks also does more than enough to warrant Midsomer country status, Herts perhaps fortunate to make the cut on the strength of just the very beautiful Aldbury village green and two Chipperfield pubs. Places I'd most like to visit are The Royal Standard of England pub on Forty Green (as featured in Blood Wedding and Death in Chorus).

"Not surprisingly, ghostly tales link to the pub abound. When the place came under Parliamentary control in the 17th century, some violent soldiers staked a group of Cavalier's heads on pikes outside the door. Included among these was that of a twelve year old drummer boy, who is said to be still haunting the building today. Look out also for the ghost in the bar, an unfortunate traveller who was crushed to death by a speeding stagecoach."

Would also love a nose around Long Crendon Library, the 'Caulston Library' stunt double featured in Dead Letters (Carnival Queen in peril) and Blood Wedding again.

Other allegedly haunted locations featured in the drama include Henry VIII's old stomping ground, Chenies Manor House (Judgement Day, Orchis Fatalis, Beyond the Grave), Chinnor (Death in a Chocolate Box) and St. Mary the Virgin, Turville (the entire village became Midsomer Parva for the atypically grim The Straw Woman).

[andydecker]

This looks nice!

The series has become nearly unwatchable, seems they cut the budget. Where there used to be a village, now you have five people. Recently I watched a re-run of the first shows, compared to the current ones they looked like movies.

[cromagnonman]

Aldbury is one of those places which I feel I know like the back of my hand on account of its prominence as a prime filming location. But I've never actually been there. A natural stand-in for a show like Midsomer Murders I guess most people would recognise it from various Avengers episodes. Personally though I associate it most with Shillingbury Tales, a short lived series but with just enough genre connections to merit a mention here. All the episodes being directed by Val Guest with 70s horror stalwart Linda Hayden featuring prominently in it. Starred the late lamented Robin Nedwell - briefly escaping his Dr Duncan Wareing persona - and had another one of those theme tunes that burrows like a Tremors worm into the subconcious, erupting forth when one least expects it. And it should be noted that the show had its requisite "spooky" episode too with "The Shillingbury Miracle".   

[andydecker]

Feb 28, 2021 13:09:18 GMT cromagnonman said:

Aldbury is one of those places which I feel I know like the back of my hand on account of its prominence as a prime filming location. But I've never actually been there. A natural stand-in for a show like Midsomer Murders I guess most people would recognise it from various Avengers episodes.

Do you mean this one among them? One of the few later episodes I still like.

[cromagnonman]

Feb 28, 2021 13:39:09 GMT andydecker said:

Feb 28, 2021 13:09:18 GMT cromagnonman said:

Aldbury is one of those places which I feel I know like the back of my hand on account of its prominence as a prime filming location. But I've never actually been there. A natural stand-in for a show like Midsomer Murders I guess most people would recognise it from various Avengers episodes.

Do you mean this one among them? One of the few later episodes I still like.

Yep, that's the one. Though I always tend to associate it with "Dead Man's Treasure" more: [in my book you can't go wrong with any episode of The Avengers which has a Dad's Army cast member in it].

[dem]

Aldbury and the surrounding woods are glorious. Our form teacher took a bunch of us to Ivinghoe Youth Hostel on a geography CSE-related weekend field trip, and we spent Saturday in Aldbury, starting with a pint outside The Greyhound (as featured in Murderland) on the most beautiful sunny day. Thanks, Mr. Tighe (RIP). Have been back three or four times, plan to return if/ when, etc, as it's always led to an adventure. They used to sell a slim 'History of Aldbury' type-pamphlet in the village post office, highlighting the solitary murder - have bought a copy on at at least three occasions and somehow lost them all.

Feb 28, 2021 13:06:25 GMT andydecker said:

This looks nice!

The series has become nearly unwatchable, seems they cut the budget. Where there used to be a village, now you have five people. Recently I watched a re-run of the first shows, compared to the current ones they looked like movies.

Have long given up on it. Have enjoyed maybe three of the post-Nettles episodes; the Hammer Horror pisstake, the Oblong cult and 'The Night of the Stag' or whatever that pervy episode was called. Really, I wish they'd have retired the show with JN's departure, rebooted it as Barnaby or some such, as it sure as Hell ain't the same.

[cromagnonman]

Feb 28, 2021 14:58:32 GMT dem said:

Aldbury and the surrounding woods are glorious. Our form teacher took a bunch of us to Ivinghoe Youth Hostel on a geography CSE-related weekend field trip, and we spent Saturday in Aldbury, starting with a pint outside The Greyhound (as featured in Murderland) on the most beautiful sunny day. Thanks, Mr. Tighe (RIP). Have been back three or four times, plan to return if/ when, etc, as it's always led to an adventure. They used to sell a slim 'History of Aldbury' type-pamphlet in the village post office, highlighting the solitary murder - have bought a copy on at at least three occasions and somehow lost them all.

 

What a wonderful anecdote Dem. I wish my geography education had produced something equally marvellous. As it is five years of dreary lessons succeeded in imparting nothing more memorable than the knowledge that the Tyrollean practice of seasonal cattle driving is known as transhumance. A piece of information which, incredible as it may seem, I have discovered no practical use for in the ensuing four decades.
Had the syllabus centred around filming locations then I might have developed more of a sympathy for the subject.      

[dem]

Told you Murderville was a documentary.

Ruth Lady Craufurd - The Aldbury Double Murder - Being an Account of the Events That Took Place on the Eve of the Third Sunday in Advent in 1891 in a Hertfordshire Village (Undated, 4th edition. Originally March 1963)

"At the edge of Nowers Wood there is a field called Marlins which runs up to the edge of the Downs - here Double saw at what he first thought was a fallen limb of a tree lying about a hundred yards from the edge of the wood, Farmer Jellis, on the opposite side of the Ivinghoe road, standing in his dungyard (now the carriage sweep of Barley End House) had seen the same motionless object and Farmer Waterton of Down Farm had seen it as well and had thought that Jellis had placed a scare-crow there.
Hurrying across the ploughed field Double and Willmore found the body of poor Crawley, lying in a pool of blood. He appeared to have been trying to get away, possibly to seek help, and he had been struck down by such a fearful blow on the back of his head that his skull was crushed in ...."

I so love stuff like this. A 16 page booklet detailing the horrendous murders of gamekeepers William Puddephat and Joseph Crawley at Christmas, 1891, for which two poachers were executed and a third, Smith, served eighteen of twenty years for manslaughter. The latter admitted in court to brawling with the victims, but claimed to have gone home before anyone was killed (apparently Smith relented on his death bed and confessed to one of the murders). It seems they'd all been drinking heavily beforehand in The Greyhound. Commendably, at least as far as we ghouls are concerned, there is no attempt at sugar-coating the horrific injuries ("He was dead all right. I could have put my fingers in his brains."). Author ends by sharing a local tradition that the ghosts of the dead men haunt Nowers Wood after nightfall, seeking out those who killed them.

[andydecker]

This is so great. I never saw a thing like that.  Were there a lot of them?

[dem]

Well, the booklet went through at least seven printings, so I'm guessing it was popular. It might still be among the titles on sale in the Post Office-Village Store (am hoping to find out post lockdown, should ever such a time arise). Self published, printed locally, it has the look of a fanzine - say a slimline G&S or Dark Dreams.

[samdawson]

So Aldbury is Murdersville, after all

[andydecker]

While I saw similar publications in museums, they were never about big oakes and gruesame murders. A shame. Aldbury seems to be an interesting place.

[dem]

Yesterday's other market find.

Jeff Evans - Midsomer Murders: The Making of an English Crime Classic (Batsford, 2002)

John Nettles - Foreword
Introduction

The Road to Midsomer
The Birth of Barnaby
Getting Down to Murder
The Writer’s Tale
Midsomer Mood Music
Making Murder Look Easy
The Real Midsomer
John Nettles is DCI Barnaby
Daniel Casey is Sgt Troy
Jane Wymark is Joyce Barnaby
Laura Howard is Cully Barnaby
Barry Jackson is Dr Bullard
Haven’t We Seen You Before?
Most Welcome Guests
A Day on the Set
Episode Guide

Index

Blurb:

"Every time I go into a Midsumer village, it‘s always the same thing: blackmail, sexual deviancy, suicide and murder."
Detective Chief lnspector Tom Barnaby, Causton CID.

The official, full-colour guide to the making of Midsomer Murders takes you behind the scenes of one of television‘s most popular series.
Peer behind the Lace curtains of picturesque rural England, past thatched cottages and red telephone boxes for an insight into some of the most baffling and gruesome murders ever conceived for the small screen. Meet the charmingly ‘ordinary' DCI Barnaby and his young sidekick Sgt Troy, alias John Nettles and Daniel Casey, two men charged with bringing justice to the glorious, but sadly blood-drenched, county of Midsomer.

Barnaby and Troy are policemen with what might be describes as a 'difficult beat’. While the stark streets of the inner city harbour a more obvious threat, the fragrant country lanes of Midsomer are, in reality, a much more frightening prospect. A burly thug with a knuckle-duster for jewellery is no match for a frail old lady with a thirst for revenge. Riots on the streets outside a soccer stadium pale into insignificance next to the fury seething on the courts of an exclusive tennis club.

John Nettles' intro aside, not had time for anything other than a cursory flick through, but plan to knuckle down soon. The Episode guide covers series 1 - 5 inclusive, the Sergeant Troy era, beginning with the excellent The Murders at Badger's Drift, ending on A Worm In The Bud, so, far as I recall just the one case involving the 'supernatural' (Beyond The Grave) and way too early for the bizarre kinky stuff like Country Matters.

Commentary of sorts to follow.

[andydecker]

This sounds like a nice book. From the time when MM developed into the crazy series it became for a while. Even if there were some dull duds among the first 5 series like every series has - Blue Herrings come to mind -, these were still great episodes compared to the pale shadow it has become. I still watch it when the new episodes are on, we got episode 130 last at christmas, from 2021, but only to marvel how bad this has gotten. Where there used to be 50 extras, now they are 5, the stories are limp, weak shadows of what they used to be, the murders have become a whiny affair.

As the series is often re-run by its German network, I watched most of the Nettles run again last year. I missed the first DVD boxes and it was fun to watch especially the first episodes. Lovingly done, elaborate, baroque and needlessly over-complicated, which is half of the fun. One has to salute the balls of producer Brian True-May to do such a off-beat and downright nuts episode like Death of a Hollow Man, the one where they did Amadeus on the stage. Impossible to imagine they could produce such an episode today.