MICHAEL HOGAN HOW I SEE IT

Unflashy, unfashionable and impossible to resist – these crime dramas are as cosy as an old cardigan

There are three main subjects on which the dreaded metropolitan liberal elite™ will never agree with the British public. The first is politics, of course. Let’s hope recent election and referendum results have pricked that particular bubble, although I strongly suspect they haven’t. [Does Paddington Bear-style hard stare in directions of Islington, Twitter and Broadcasting House].

The second is cookery. Foodie types seem convinced we all subsist on avocado-on-sourdough brunches, superfood salads and fiddly but photogenic suppers requiring Tolstoylength shopping lists of obscure ingredients, when we’re actually soldiering through January on a diet of Christmas leftovers, cheese, comfort food and, go on then, more cheese.

And the third – you’ll be way ahead of me here – is television. Critics are forever banging on about quirky Netflix series, subtitled foreign dramas and cult comedies. Viewing figures show that most of us are, in fact, watching such home-grown staples as Strictly, Bake Off, Doc Martin, Call the Midwife, Poldark and Mrs Brown’s Boys. Dancing, cake, medicine, shirtless scything and bum gags – let’s list them all under “interests” on our national CV.

We are also partial to a spot of cosy crime. Happily, several warm, fluffy favourites of the genre returned to TV this week. It’s almost as if the schedulers know that what we crave at this time of year is undemanding whodunits to ease any first-weekback, giving-Dry-January-a-go blues.

First out of the traps on Monday was Midsomer Murders, the evergreen ITV ratings-grabber now embarking on its 21st series. We’ve witnessed 220 murders in the leafy homicide hotspot of Midsomer, the most memorable of which was a woman killed with a wheel of cheese – a handy metaphor for how many of us feel after days of festive overindulgence. This week’s rural wrongdoing involved a killer corset, a lethal confetti cannon and the smuggling of drugs inside jars of artisanal chutney, which must be the most middle-class narcotics crime ever. They’ll be hiding crackpipes inside W I quiches and adding crystal meth to the Ocado order next.

Then, on Thursday, came the ninth series of BBC One’s calypso crime yarn Death In Paradise, set on the Caribbean island-cum-murder magnet of Saint-Marie. Was there a serial killer in a devil mask on the loose? Of course not – that would be far too scary. Instead, the culprits were two bungling Brits, trading murders like something out of Strangers on a Train: Winter Sun Edition.

Death In Paradise is a direct descendant of Heartbeat, with reggae and rum replacing that series’s Sixties pop and Yorkshire bitter. A whopping 8million viewers tune into its lilting, feather-light charms because it’s a holiday for both the eyes and the brain.

A murderous week was completed by the return of not one but two crime-cracking clergymen. (What’s the collective term for such heroic men of the cloth – a bicycle? a collar? a scone?) Father Brown was back on BBC daytime, solving sleepy riddles involving church choirs and Cotswold village fetes. He was followed on ITV on Friday night by Grantchester’s the Rev Will Davenport, investigating a student’s murder by champagne bottle. Hey, it beats death by prosecco.

All four programmes pootled merrily along like a Morris Traveller down a country lane, drawing millions more viewers than far-morefashionable shows. Low on graphic violence, sex or profanity but high on bumbling eccentrics and mild misunderstandings, they’re the comfy televisual equivalent of cardigan and slippers – or in Death In Paradise’s case, crumpled linen slacks and Hawaiian shirt.

Is it an odd coincidence that three quarters of this week’s cosy crime series have replaced their original star sleuths? When John Nettles’s DCI

Tom Barnaby retired from Midsomer CID in 2011, he was succeeded by the character’s younger cousin, DCI John Barnaby, played by Neil Dudgeon – a fine actor but, let’s face it, he’s no Jersey dreamboat like Jim Bergerac.

After Grantchester’s valiant vicar

James Norton went on to bigger things, he passed the clerical collar to Tom Brittney. It’s a little like when Taggart carried on without, er, Taggart. Death In Paradise is currently on its third leading man, perma-baffled Irishman Ardal O’Hanlon, after Ben Miller and Kris Marshall got sick of removing strawberry daiquiri stains from their Man from Del Monte suits. Now this is O’Hanlon’s swansong series. I wonder if viewers would mind if he was replaced by a watermelon with a smiley face drawn on it.

Probably not, because these dramas are about story, not star names. In a world of shouty uncertainty, they offer quietly soothing solutions. They’re a satisfying, if gentle mental puzzle, like a cryptic crossword with added killing. A blood-spattered sudoku. A word search with “D-E-AT-H” spelt out along the diagonal. We find comfort in a formulaic whodunit’s familiar rhythms and tropes. Crimes are committed, clues are uncovered, before the all-knowing hero assembles all the suspects to explain how the foul deed was done and arrest the culprit. All is right with the world again. Well, bar the odd corpse.

Yes, there are few things we find more relaxing than a nice bit of murder. What a bunch of glorious eccentrics we Brits are. Pass the cheesy potatoes, but hold the chia seeds, please.

There have been 220 murders in Midsomer; in one, a woman was killed with a big cheese

Victoria Coren Mitchell is away

CAMBRIDGE BLUES Grantchester and, below, Midsomer Murders, are both back on screen