Favourite episodes plus an extra disc in which Nettles explains his choices and delivers some illuminating anecdotes
"It's a classic combination of fairy cakes and bloodletting," says John Nettles of the much-loved detective series, a stalwart of Sunday teatimes and quiet weekday afternoons since 1997. In the unlikely event that you've never settled down with a cup of tea in front of one of its 85 episodes, here's a primer: Nettles plays DCI Barnaby (think Inspector Morse's slightly bumbling country cousin), haphazardly solving gruesome killings among the clerics, headmasters and maiden aunts that people the fictional Middle England county of Midsomer.
Nettles announced his departure from the series two years ago, to the sound of roughly 13.5m noses blowing ? so this new box set, in which the actor selects his 10 favourite episodes, is a good reason for his fans to dry their tears. Each of his choices is a gem.
In 2000's Blue Herrings, Nettles's favourite script, a series of mysterious deaths in a care home leads to an unusually poignant exploration of the issues around euthanasia. And in 2002's Murder on St Malley's Day ? which he calls the "most dramatic" episode ? a string of bloodthirsty murders inside a Bullingdon Club-esque school secret society comes to an end, with characteristically charming implausibility, only when Barnaby chances across the key evidence ? a toothbrush hidden in a tree-stump.
Almost as entertaining is the box set's extra disc, a series of short interviews in which Nettles, all twinkly eyes and plummy drama-school vowels, explains his choices and recounts a number of illuminating anecdotes whose lascivious content perfectly match the show's very English combination of gore, gentle humour, and genteel sexual shenanigans.
There's the time, on the set of Blue Herrings, that Nettles watched the then 72-year-old actor Nigel Davenport turn his head to follow an attractive young actress as she walked by. "You take a tonne of Viagra and it gets you nowhere," Davenport turned to Nettles and said, "but it's all going on in your head." Then there's the day that the entire crew crowded on to the set of Strangler's Wood ? Nettles's all-time favourite episode ? to watch a six-foot model take her clothes off to play a strangled cadaver. "Everyone who was anyone was there," he admits. Best of all was the moment, during the filming of A Worm in the Bud, that Nettles picked up a copy of the Daily Telegraph to find a headline stating that his co-star, Wendy Craig, had "had John Mortimer's love-child". "It just," Nettles chuckles, "seemed so absolutely Midsomer."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/feb/25/your-next-box-set
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