‘Midsomer Murders: The Killings at Badger’s Drift’ review – murder most merry
★★★★☆ For ‘Midsomer’ devotees, a smart, affectionate reinvention; for sceptics, proof that murder can be merrily theatrical.
The writer herself, Caroline Graham, now 94 and author of the Midsomer Murders novels, sat quietly in the stalls at Richmond Theatre, watching her creation reborn for a new century. In the bar, producers and backers hovered with prosecco flutes in hand, half nervous, half triumphant. They needn’t have worried. Within minutes, the genteel south-west London crowd, so often accused of being hard to ruffle, were shaking with laughter loud enough to startle the box-office pigeons. The evening felt less like a press night than a village fête where someone happened to stage a murder.
Richmond Theatre, Frank Matcham’s 1899 masterpiece of gilt and velvet, could hardly have hosted a more fitting murder. The Grade II-listed playhouse is compact, steeply raked and acoustically impeccable – its intimacy a reminder that Matcham designed theatres for people, not crowds. From the dress circle, you can observe the audience as closely as the stage, a pastime perfectly suited to this famously leafy borough, recently ranked the happiest place to live in London. The applause between acts felt more like greetings over garden fences than the polite clapping of strangers, and with a versatile stage set and opulent interior, the evening delivered a full West End experience.
Guy Unsworth’s stage adaptation of ‘The Killings at Badger’s Drift’ – the first of Caroline Graham’s novels and the seed of the TV series Midsomer Murders – keeps faith with its origins while gleefully sending them up. In the idyllic village where nothing bad should ever happen, octogenarian Emily Simpson is found dead after spotting a rare orchid. Her friend Lucy insists it was murder, and so arrive Chief Inspector Barnaby and his sidekick, Sergeant Troy, to discover that beneath the bunting lies adultery, debt, jealousy and, naturally, more corpses.
Unsworth understands the peculiar Englishness of a “cosy crime” that hides its body count behind Victoria sponge. He also knows that, on stage, it’s no use pretending realism. His production leans into the absurd with a wink: corpses are represented by garden gnomes; ghostly forensic technicians waltz to the show’s famous TV theme; and in one delirious scene, an actor conducts a self-interrogation – spinning half-and-half between costumes like a Tommy Cooper sketch.
Daniel Casey – who once played Troy on television – steps into Barnaby’s shoes with an affable steadiness, gliding serenely through chaos like a man who has seen every motive under the English sun. Opposite him, James Bradwell’s Troy supplies youthful zeal and comedy, notebook perpetually in hand. Around them the cast whirl through multiple roles and genders: John Dougall’s trio of suspects (from meddling Iris Rainbird to oily Dr Lessiter) are pure comic relish; Chandrika Chevli and Nathalie Barclay match him in energy, while Julie Legrand anchors the madness with warmth and precision of a metronome. He also knows that, on stage, it’s no use pretending realism. His production leans into the absurd with a wink: corpses are represented by garden gnomes; ghostly forensic technicians waltz to the show’s famous TV theme; and in one delirious scene, an actor conducts a self-interrogation – spinning half-and-half between costumes like a Tommy Cooper sketch.
David Woodhead’s set is a miniature marvel – pastel-framed cottages, sliding interiors, a circular “Midsomer County” window through which birdsong and menace drift in together. Matt Haskins’s lighting moves us smoothly from parlour to woodland glade, and Max Pappenheim’s familiar score provokes a nostalgic sigh each time the oboe returns. The direction is meticulous yet playful; scene changes slide by like television cuts, a knowing parody of the series’ commercial-break rhythm.
If anything falters, it’s the second half, where pace loosens and the final reveal lands with less punch than it promises. Yet even that feels true to the ‘Midsomer’ tradition – more teatime satisfaction than midnight shock.
You could sneer at the genre, but this production delivers exactly what it promises without pretending to be what it is not. For that, it deserves four stars.
Midsomer Murders: The Killings at Badger’s Drift
Venue: Richmond Theatre
Dates: 24 October – 1 November 2025; UK & Ireland tour continues though June 2026
Times: 7:30pm (matinee 2:30pm Sat)
Tickets: From £15
Website: https://midsomeronstage.com/
Elena Leo is the Arts & Lifestyle Editor of Ikon London Magazine.
