The Marlow Murder Club, review: thought Death in Paradise was cosy? It's got nothing on this gem
Cosy crime shows can't really improve on The Marlow Murder Club (U&Drama). It is a gentle delight devised by Death in Paradise creator Robert Thorogood and clearly aimed as much at an international audience as a homegrown one ,with its bucolic vision of England.
The opening scenes showed us cricket on the village green, bunting over the high street and several red telephone boxes. Viewers in the US or Japan probably remain blissfully unaware that, in reality, all of Britain's phone boxes smell of wee. They are probably also ignorant of red trousers as a social signifier.
The murder victim here, Sir Peter Bailey, was wearing a pair when he died. He was crushed to death by a falling cabinet and all we could see were his legs poking out, like a Home Counties version of the Wicked Witch of the East.
Cue our intrepid sleuths, led by Samantha Bond as Judith Potts, with Suzie (Jo Martin) and Becks (Cara Horgan) in support. Judith is a retired archaeologist with a magnificent house on the river, where she's partial to a spot of naked wild swimming. Suzie is a dog walker and Becks is a vicar's wife; they strike me as rather unlikely friends, but this is not the sort of series about which one should think too deeply.
It is unashamedly formulaic and all the Agatha Christie elements were here: the locked room mystery, the amateur detectives spotting clues that the police overlooked, the list of suspects who appeared to have strong alibis. Sir Peter's son, daughter and bride-to-be were the main suspects, although I had my eye on the gardener.
The mystery played out over two episodes and the ending, when you reach it, is quite ingenious. I loved the little details, such as Judith dusting an object for fingerprints by covering it in a cloud of powdered sugar from her tin of travel sweets, and a footprint being identified by Becks as a ladies' Hunter: 'It's my specialist subject, posh wellies of Marlow.' The show doesn't pretend to be anything other than ridiculous, and for that I really do like it.
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