50 Fun Facts About Midsomer Murders

Which dairy product, the pride of Midsomer Pastures, is the murder weapon in 'Schooled in Murder'?

A wheel of cheese kills Debbie Moffett in the caves where Midsomer Blue is matured, the scene most often cited when the show's dark comedy comes up. The 2013 episode also bids farewell to DS Ben Jones with a party at the Barnabys' home.

Which instrument, played without touching it, gives the Midsomer Murders theme its eerie voice?

The Theremin is played by moving the hands near two antennas, one for pitch and one for volume, and the Midsomer theme is a moderate-tempo waltz written around it. Leon Theremin patented it in 1928.

Midsomer takes its name from Midsomer Norton, a real town in which English county?

Somerset also lent the show Midsomer Wellow and Causton, which are borrowed from the real villages of Wellow and Corston. Many of the fictional villages follow the same 'Midsomer' naming convention.

Which future film star played village thief Peter Drinkwater in the 2000 episode 'Judgement Day'?

Orlando Bloom played thief and lothario Peter Drinkwater in 2000, a year before Legolas made him famous. The episode unfolds around Midsomer Mallow's bid to be crowned the 'Perfect English Village'.

What breed is Sykes, the rescue dog in every John Barnaby episode for five years?

Sykes was a Jack Russell terrier whose real owners retired him after series 18, so series 19 opened with the Barnabys at a grave in their back garden. By the end of that episode the family had taken in a new rescue dog.

The 100th Midsomer Murders episode went to which foreign capital, co-produced with its broadcaster DR?

Copenhagen hosted 'The Killings of Copenhagen' in 2014, with scenes at Nyhavn and inside the circular courtyard of the city's police headquarters. Biscuit tycoon Eric Calder is poisoned there with strychnine posted from Badger's Drift.

Which writer adapted the first three Midsomer Murders episodes from Caroline Graham's novels?

Anthony Horowitz, also the author of the Alex Rider books, adapted six early episodes and wrote most of the first few series. Graham's first five novels supplied the first five episodes.

Which actress has played Causton pathologist Dr Fleur Perkins since 2019?

Annette Badland played Margaret Blaine in Doctor Who and Babe Smith in EastEnders before taking over Causton's mortuary. In 2018 she reached the final of a charity Pointless alongside Neil Dudgeon.

Which Midsomer Murders regular, an experimental cook, longed to swap Causton for a picturesque village?

Joyce was always put off by the grisly murders in the villages she fancied, and Tom took every chance to dine out rather than face her cooking. The couple met in London and married in the 1970s.

What full-time job does John Barnaby's wife Sarah hold, keeping her clear of most of his Midsomer cases?

A head teacher at Causton Comprehensive, Sarah has a career of her own and so features far less in the plots than her predecessor did. She and John marked their fifteenth wedding anniversary in 'Schooled in Murder'.

In 'Death and Dust', Tom Barnaby and Ben Jones follow a case out of Midsomer into which country?

Wales is Ben Jones's homeland, and he makes much of it on the trip; the episode is one of only a handful of cases ever set outside Midsomer. Jason Hughes, who plays him, is Welsh too.

Which future film star appeared in Midsomer Murders in 2003, a pre-fame turn recalled in '25 Years of Mayhem'?

Henry Cavill was fresh from The Count of Monte Cristo when he turned up in Midsomer, a decade before he first wore the cape. The 2022 ITV documentary marked the show's 25th anniversary.

Which Midsomer Wellow society, fresh from a £30,000 horse-race win, is picked off one by one in a 2002 episode?

The bell-ringers are hoping to win the annual striking competition when a grudge from the past resurfaces, and the first victim is found in the belfry. The episode, 'Ring Out Your Dead', aired in 2002 in the fifth series.

'Destroying Angel', in which heirs to the Easterly Grange Hotel die one by one, takes its title from what?

A poisonous mushroom of the all-white Amanita genus goes by that name, and hotel chef Tristan Goodfellow eats a meal of mushrooms that includes it. The episode aired in 2001, in the fourth series.

Which Midsomer sergeant, arriving in series 19 alongside a new Barnaby family dog, is the longest-serving by tenure?

Jamie Winter, played by Nick Hendrix, has outlasted every predecessor, and his romance with pathologist Kam Karimore was written in from his first series. Hendrix is a nephew of the newsreader Alastair Stewart.

Which Causton pathologist joined the Midsomer Worthy choir in 'Death in Chorus'?

George Bullard, played by Barry Jackson, served from the pilot until 2011, when he told John Barnaby he was taking some time off at the end of 'The Oblong Murders'. Jackson was in the first fourteen series.

A film crew shooting which swashbuckler at Midsomer Magna's Manor House loses its director to a prop guillotine?

The Scarlet Pimpernel is being filmed at Midsomer Magna's Manor House when the crew's arrival coincides with a known criminal lurking about the grounds. The trail leads to an elaborately planned robbery before the truth emerges.

In 'Small Mercies', a body tied down in the Little Worthy model village echoes which classic book?

Gulliver's Travels is the picture the scene evokes: model maker Bob Moss finds Richard Tanner pinned down like Gulliver on his early morning rounds. The model village belongs to the elderly Compton sisters.

In 'Death of a Hollow Man', an amateur actor's stage death turns real in the final act of which play?

Amadeus is being staged by the Causton Amateur Dramatics Society when Esslyn Carmichael is fatally wounded on stage, and Caroline Graham herself is credited as writer of this 1998 episode, adapted from her second novel.

In Caroline Graham's first Barnaby novel, Emily Simpson's autopsy finds red wine mixed with which poison?

Hemlock proves Miss Bellringer right that her friend did not die of a heart attack, and the case became the 1997 pilot, 'The Killings at Badger's Drift'. The novel made the Crime Writers' Association's list of the top 100 crime novels.

'Secrets and Spies' reveals that Tom Barnaby once worked for which agency, long before he ran Causton CID?

MI6 was Barnaby's former employer, which is why the murder of ex-agent Geoffrey Larkin at a safe house run by retired spies draws him in personally. The 'Beast of Midsomer' gets the blame at first.

Tom Barnaby's final case, 'Fit for Murder', opens with a Swavely Manor spa client found dead in what?

A flotation chamber holds the first victim, and the mystery deepens when her husband disappears; the episode aired in the UK on 2 February 2011 and closed the thirteenth series. John Nettles had announced his exit two years earlier.

How many Midsomer Murders episodes did John Nettles's Tom Barnaby appear in before handing over to John Barnaby?

81 episodes across thirteen series, after which Nettles said it was 'always wise to leave people wanting more, rather than be booed off the stage'. His successor had already been introduced in 'The Sword of Guillaume'.

Causton is often played by which Oxfordshire market town, itself named after the river along its north side?

Thame has doubled for Causton many times for Bentley Productions, sharing the job with Wallingford, while the fictional county town houses Barnaby's home and the CID office. The town lies 13 miles east of Oxford.

Clues such as a body in the Thames in 'Dead in the Water' hint that Midsomer really covers which county?

Berkshire and part of northern Hampshire are where several episodes quietly place the county, although Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire provide many of the real filming locations. Buckinghamshire launched three themed location tours in 2021.

Which four-time BAFTA winner, who also scored the UK House of Cards, composed the Midsomer Murders theme?

Jim Parker scored hundreds of programmes, including Foyle's War and The House of Eliott, and died in 2023 aged 88. His Midsomer waltz has been reworked across several soundtrack CDs.

How many Chief Inspector Barnaby novels did Caroline Graham write, the first of them published in 1987?

7 novels, the last of them published in 2004, while Midsomer Murders has run past 140 episodes, so almost every plot is original to television. Graham, from Nuneaton, took a master's degree at 60.

In October 2025, ITV announced the commission of which numbered series of Midsomer Murders?

The 26th series was ordered while the 25th still awaited its UK airing, as new runs now often debut abroad or on Acorn TV first. By 30 December 2025, 138 episodes across 24 series had been broadcast in the UK.

Which producer was suspended in 2011 after calling Midsomer Murders 'the last bastion of Englishness'?

Brian True-May told the Radio Times the show had no non-white characters because he wanted to keep it that way, and All3Media suspended him. His successor Jo Wright promised a range of ethnic groups on screen.

Cully Barnaby's unusual first name comes from a honeymoon village on which lake?

Lake Geneva's village of Cully, in Switzerland, is where Tom and his wife conceived their only child, who grew up to take temporary jobs around Midsomer between acting roles. Laura Howard played her from 1997 to 2011.

Which seaside city links John Barnaby's old posting, Ben Jones's promotion and Dr Kate Wilding's professorship?

Brighton is where John Barnaby was introduced in 'The Sword of Guillaume', and later DI Jones and Dr Wilding both moved there, appearing together in a photo in 'Habeas Corpus'. It is one of only three settings outside Midsomer.

Which Midsomer sergeant, a Londoner unhappy to leave the Met, dismissed the county as 'the sticks'?

Dan Scott, played by John Hopkins, lasted two series and vanished abruptly: Barnaby simply reports that he has called in sick, and Ben Jones steps in for good. His love interest in 'The Straw Woman' was murdered.

Which rescue dog joined the Barnabys in series 19, after Sykes was written out with a graveside scene?

Paddy arrives by the end of the same episode, 'The Village That Rose from the Dead', which also introduces a new sergeant. Sykes had simply been retired by his real-life owners after five years on set.

In 'The Ballad of Midsomer County', folk festival organiser Toby Winning is found drowned in a bowl of what?

Eggs and live eels fill the bowl because the killing copies a ballad by the late musician Johnny Carver, and two more deaths echo the same song's lyrics. Toby had planned to move the festival to London.

In 'Hidden Depths', a solicitor's rival is killed with his own model of which medieval machine?

A catapult, the victim's own model, is the weapon in an episode that opened with solicitor Nick Turner apparently walking off his roof in Midsomer Magna. A client's money had vanished.

Whose real-life pregnancy was written into Midsomer Murders, so that Sarah Barnaby gave birth to Betty?

Fiona Dolman had a daughter in 2013, and her character spent series 16 pregnant before delivering in its final episode. Dolman had earlier been Jackie Bradley in Heartbeat.

In 'Death and the Divas', a film journalist dies as if bitten by what, in tribute to 1960s horror films?

A vampire appears to have punctured Eve Lomax's neck while she researched horror star Stella Harris, and the Radio Times said the episode had its tongue so far into its cheek 'it hurts'. Stella's famous sister returns after a 40-year rift.

The Six Bells in Warborough, Oxfordshire, repeatedly plays which Badger's Drift pub in Midsomer Murders?

The Black Swan is Badger's Drift's local, and the village has been a setting since the pilot, while Turville's Bull & Butcher has twice been renamed for the show. Warborough itself has hosted filming many times.

From series 14, the closing titles of Midsomer Murders switched the theme to which instrument?

Solo violin now carries a standardised version of the theme over the end credits, while the opening keeps its eerie electronic lead; a jovial clarinet version closed 'The Scarecrow Murders' for the 25th anniversary in 2022.

Which musician, who died in 2011, played the eerie hands-free electronic part of the Midsomer Murders theme?

Celia Sheen (1940–2011) performed the part, which the composer wrote as a moderate-tempo waltz with a sound likened to a low whistle or a human voice. A standardised version later replaced it over the closing titles.

Which award for best first novel did 'The Killings at Badger's Drift' win in 1989, two years after publication?

The Macavity win came alongside a 1988 Agatha nomination for the same honour, and Caroline Graham's first published book had been a romance, Fire Dance, in 1982.

John Nettles's first wife, whom he divorced in 1979, later held which job on Midsomer Murders?

Casting director was the role taken by Nettles's ex-wife, whom he had married in 1967; their daughter had moved to Jersey with him during Bergerac and joined the island's police. Nettles was appointed OBE in 2010.

Workaholic Tom Barnaby spent his honeymoon solving which case, which suggests he met his wife in London?

The Pimlico Poisoner case is the running joke about his priorities; his parents were both dead by 'Blue Herrings', and in his final case he learns his father died on his birthday at the very age Tom had then reached.

In a series 25 episode, Brad Furbank is killed by a booby-trapped what the night after his engagement party?

Cuckoo clock mechanisms rarely kill, but this one does at Godley Manor on the night after the victim's engagement party. The episode reached US streaming in December 2025 ahead of any UK airing.

In 'The Village That Rose from the Dead', eco-minded Finn Thornberry is found crushed beneath what?

A tank fits Little Auburn, a village requisitioned by the army in the Second World War and abandoned until villagers fought over reopening it. The case is the first for DCI John Barnaby's newest sergeant.

DS Charlie Nelson's first Midsomer case, aired on Christmas Eve 2013, opens with a death during what kind of event?

A ghost hunt at the Manor House in Morton Shallows ends with the death of furniture maker Conor Bridgeman, and a tape of a young girl's voice deepens the mystery. The episode is 'The Christmas Haunting'.

Pathologist Dr Kam Karimore left Midsomer at the end of series 19 for a job in which city?

Montreal took her away just as her romance with the new sergeant was developing; Manjinder Virk played the coroner from 2016 to 2018. She grew up with four red setters and a Labrador.

John Barnaby's psychology degree, which earned him ribbing from DS Jones, came from which university?

Durham awarded the degree, and after a rocky start he and Jones made a formidable team; the son of Ned Barnaby, he transferred in from the south coast to replace his older cousin.

Neil Dudgeon's first episode as lead is disrupted by a death at what kind of event at Darnley Park Girls School?

A vintage car rally at Darnley Park Girls School revives the memory of a racing driver found dead there years earlier in an apparent suicide. Dudgeon had first appeared in the show eleven years earlier, as a gardener.

In 'Red in Tooth & Claw', an estate agent is found dead in a pet-show marquee surrounded by which animals?

Live rabbits surround Seb Huntington in the village of Bellville, and the motives range from animal-rights activism to the theft of a prize-winning pet. The episode aired in January 2017.