Off with their heads!
10:44am Friday 2nd May 2008
WHAT is it with the Barnaby women in Midsomer Murders (ITV1)? Any suggestion of thespian pursuits and there they are, ready to don all manner of costumes and take to the stage.
Daughter Cully is the usual suspect in this respect, but in Sunday's episode it was mother Joyce's turn - although becoming one of the hags and crones' in an execution scene during a film about the Scarlet Pimpernel was hardly a role to crow about.
And I'm seriously worried about Tom Barnaby's sidekick, Ben Jones, thinking Joyce looked fetching' in her peasant's red cap!
The film set provided the backdrop to a couple of very Midsomer type of murders. No run of the mill shootings, stabbings or stranglings here. The erudite killer dispatched his victims by drugging them and then separating their heads from their bodies with the guillotine on the film set.
Good old Tom Barnaby eventually cottoned on to what was going on - just in time to save a third potential victim from the blade, despite the fact that the second victim was wheeled past him theatrically on a cart before losing her head.
He really will have to get better at this detection lark or Midsomer's population will continue to plummet - albeit at the hands of a better class of criminal.
Back in Weatherfield, the class of criminal is decidely stupid. Spurned sop Paul - son of Terry Duckworth and grandson of long suffering Jack - decided to confess to the Italian restaurant arson attack in a fit of pique, after Leanne refused to hand over all the insurance money to him.
As bookie Dan observed, if it was a choice between half of the cash and a stretch in Strangeways, there was only one sensible option. And they wonder why we don't believe in soap storylines any more!