A match made in Devon

IF YOU want my opinion, and obviously it would be lovely if you did, I’d say they don’t make nearly enough programmes like Death In Paradise. By which, of course, I mean cosy crime shows. They’re by far my favourite kind.

Characters in cosy crime shows do still get a bit murdered, I’ll grant you that, but it’s never in, you know, a horrid way.And they only get murdered at a rate of one a week, so the police still have time for hobbies and suchlike.

Back tonight for a second series is one TV drama that actually does have quite a bit in common with that programme, and that’s its pleasingly popular spin-off, BEYOND PARADISE (8pm, BBC1). It’s the one where Kris Marshall reprises the role of DI Humphrey Goodman, chief detective on that original show from 2014 to 2017.

Its setting, you may recall, is the fictional Shipton Abbott on the Devon coast. It’s maybe not as Paradisey, some might say, as the Caribbean island of Saint Marie, Humphrey’s previous patch, but it does have its advantages.

For a start, one doesn’t have to take a plane to get there, which means one doesn’t have to go to an airport, which means one doesn’t have to hang around for hours in one’s idea of hell, nor remove one’s belt to prove that one is not a terrorist, resulting in one’s trousers falling down and frightening a family of four from Wolverhampton.

Also, perhaps more pertinent, Shipton Abbott is the hometown of Humphrey’s fiancee Martha (Sally Bretton), and where she’s happiest, other than maybe-Walton-on-Thames, where, as we’ll be reminded later in NOT GOING OUT (9.30pm, BBC1), she leads a parallel existence as the wife of Lee Mack.

In this first episode of Beyond Paradise’s new run, cosy crime is actually something of a theme, as the Shipton Abbott Players rehearse for their murder mystery night, an immersive theatre event to be performed on board a proper old steam train.

Requiring only minimal acting talent is the man standing in for now as the sleuth in charge of the case. Because, yes, you guessed it, it’s Humphrey.

But can you guess what happens to the actor cast as the murder victim, who’s required to play dead as a fake knife is plunged into his back? You can?

Oh, fair enough.

Also tonight, in the final episode of this year’s GREAT BRITISH MENU (7pm, BBC2; 9.30pm in Wales), it’s time for the chefs who’ve made it to the finishing line to enjoy the prize they’ve worked so hard for.

Namely, to serve their dishes at the end-of-series banquet in Paris.

In other words, to do even more work.

Me, I’d have settled for a set of saucepans.