Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
MY DECADE OF DELICIOUSLY DAFT DEATHS
Marking ten years in charge as DCI Barnaby, Neil Dudgeon on the new series – and his favourite Midsomer Murders...
Neil Dudgeon has a few milestones to mark this year. It’s ten years this month since his character DCI John Barnaby first appeared as the chief protagonist in Midsomer Murders; his 50th appearance in the series will come at the end of a new four-part run beginning tomorrow; and it’s 21 years since he made his debut in the show – actually, as a gardener in the episode Garden Of Death, rather than John Barnaby, the cousin of DCI Tom Barnaby (played by John Nettles), who’d been the lead policeman since the 1997 pilot episode. Oh, and Neil turned 60 in January too.
‘Four or five months is a long job for an actor if you’re not in a soap. So to have one that goes on for ten years is extraordinary,’ he says. ‘When I took over from John Nettles, everybody would’ve been pleased with another two or three series. But it’s gone on and on.’
And there’s more to come. Neil’s halfway through filming six episodes, so he’s been enjoying some semblance of normality during the latest lockdown. ‘It turns out we’re key workers,’ he laughs.
But joking aside, it seems the makers of Midsomer are doing the nation a great service. It’s always been comfort TV with its idyllic locations, surprising guest stars and very eccentric methods of murder, but in the past year social media has been awash with people saying they’re working their way through the entire back catalogue. With 126 episodes, that’s some binge-watch.
‘It’s remarkable that in this time of awful death, people are turning to a series riddled with deaths as escapism,’ says Neil. ‘But someone being crushed by a gargoyle pushed off a castle, well, that’s not the sort of death people get very frightened about. So we’re a glorious escape from the more terrible deaths we’ve been living through. If we’re helping people to cope, that’s a great thing.’
He’s seen some bizarre murders on the show, and has a few personal favourites. ‘The man who was tied to a tree in a forest, smeared with truffle oil and then eaten by a wild boar was a great one. Very inventive. Martine Mccutcheon, playing a dairy worker, was killed with a giant cheese; and one man fell to his death after seeing a headless horseman.’
Midsomer aside, how has Neil coped in this year of Covid? ‘Even successful actors spend a lot of time not working,’ he says. ‘So all the things that were said at the start of the first lockdown about us needing structure, exercise, stimulation and goals to get through it, they’re the things you need to see yourself through as an actor. I need to feel like I’m doing something, so there’s yoga, exercise, walking, reading…’
In fact, yoga features in the first of the new Midsomer episodes, Sting Of Death – set in the world of beekeeping – as we see Barnaby get on his mat when his wife Sarah (Fiona Dolman) signs them up for a class. The fourth episode is Neil’s 50th appearance – it’s called The Stitcher Society and is about a postop heart rehab group.
Guest-starring in the beekeeping episode is Imogen Stubbs, who was at RADA with Neil in the 1980s alongside Ralph Fiennes, Jane Horrocks and Jason Watkins. ‘Neil was like a much-loved head boy,’ recalls Imogen. ‘He was the centre of the year. Ralph hero-worshipped him and everyone wanted to be his friend. We did lots of shows together; he played my father a few times.’
Was there much reminiscing on the Midsomer set then? ‘Oh yes,’ Neil grins. ‘We left drama school in 1985 and had never worked with each other until six months before the Midsomer episode, when we did a radio series.’ One student production comes to mind, he says, a panto called Robin Hood – The Truth Behind The Green Tights. ‘It was written by David Neilson, who plays Roy Cropper in Coronation Street, and he directed us. It was me, Jason, Ralph and Jane. I’d love to see that panto now with all those people as the people they’ve become.’
Decades on and Neil’s become John Barnaby to millions. ‘When I took over the lead I thought, “I’ve got to have a go because I love the show,”’ he recalls. ‘Then, to get a second series was like, “Phew! I haven’t killed this long-running programme stone dead after ten minutes. I’ve justified their faith.” But you’re always mindful that shows come and go. At some point somebody is going to say, “Enough with Midsomer, already! Please stop it!”’