This adaptation of the priest turned author’s novel is more than just another ecclesiastical cosy crime series
If any television genre could be made with generative AI, it must surely be cosy crime. These gentle and escapist detective dramas are so formulaic that ChatGPT could probably knock up a six-part series in seconds. Just enter the keywords âclose-knit rural villageâ, âamateur sleuthâ and âany decade between 1950 and 1990â and hey presto!
Fortunately, thereâs enough original authorial voice behind Murder Before Evensong to elevate it above the merely generic. That voice belongs to the Rev Richard Coles, whose 2022 novel featuring Canon Daniel Clement has now been adapted for TV.
An openly gay pop star at a time when contemporaries like George Michael and Freddie Mercury were obscuring their sexuality, Coles then became that most unfashionable of beings â a Church of England vicar. Both his faith and his sexual orientation inform Murder Before Evensong.
Set in the fictional West Midlands village of Champton in 1988, Matthew Lewis (Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter films) plays our sleuthing clergyman. Daniel is first glimpsed struggling to write a sermon while a television is blaring out Opportunity Knocks for the benefit of Danielâs formidable widowed mother and a disruptive house guest, Audrey (Amanda Redman).
As youâd expect, the titular murder takes place in the church, with Daniel discovering the body. The victim is a local history buff and the neâer-do-well younger brother of the village squire (played by Adam James), on whom the murdered sibling seems to have some blackmailable intel.
As the local police inspector, DS Neil Vanloo (Amit Shah), points out, however, the killing could have been a case of mistaken identity. Was Daniel really the intended victim? The vicar then shows Vanloo the threatening poison-pen letters heâs been receiving after visiting patients with AIDS. Vanloo tells Daniel that his local knowledge could prove invaluable to the murder investigation. âYouâre a way in,â as he puts it.
Daniel is not the most dynamic of sleuths, one of his parishioners describing him as âa good listenerâ. But then, you could say the same about Miss Marple. Fortunately, we have his mother to provide some bite and enough amusing one-liners to stop the dialogue from flatlining. When Daniel shows her a headline from the local rag â âChampton vicar visits victims of gay plagueâ â Audrey asks: âWhat were you thinking?â before pointing to the accompanying photograph. âWearing pale socks with dark trousers?â
Another promising character is the squireâs son, Alex (Alexander Delamain), whose dire performance art would probably win a Turner Prize nomination these days, but back in 1988, Champton, it only earns the uncomprehending derision of the villagers. Alex, it transpires, is having a fling with the local farm boy â this in the same year that Margaret Thatcherâs Government passed its controversial Section 28 law amidst a generally hostile era for the gay community.
Thereâs a Vicar of Dibley-esque eye cast over the parochial concerns of his congregation, presumably derived from Colesâ time as a vicar (he retired from parish duties in 2022 because of what he perceived as the fundamentalist direction of the Church of England). These squabbles include a fierce battle over whether the flower room should make way for a lavatory. âWhat about the noises?â objects one parishioner, not unreasonably.
Itâs an odd dichotomy that while CoE church attendances collapse, a taste for ecclesiastical crime is burgeoning â Murder Before Evensong joins the ranks of Father Brown, Sister Boniface Mysteries and Grantchester. Unlike its bedfellows, however, this series is not purely escapist and Coles has used the generic framework of cosy crime for his own, more personal purposes.
Without Amanda Redmanâs Audrey, however, it would be as dry as a Communion wafer.
âMurder Before Evensongâ continues next Tuesday at 9pm on 5
