Midsomer Murders has proven itself an enduring TV series by running for twenty-three years to date and with well over one hundred episodes broadcast. The novels have also been successful; the first novel, The Killings at Badger’s Drift, was included in the Crime Writer’s Association’s top 100 crime novels of all time in 1990. I will focus my analysis on this novel and its adaptation to screen, as this story has set the formula for the whole series. It is my intention to emphasise the continuity between the novel and the TV series rather than identify the differences that inherently arise in adaptations. To clarify, in this thesis, I will differentiate the novel and the TV series by referring to them specifically as “the novel” or
“the TV series”, but the “Midsomer Murders series” or in brevity “the series” will refer to the whole franchise which comprises of both the novel and the TV series.
In 2011, the then producer Brian True-May, claimed that the Midsomer Murders TV series was “the last bastion of Englishness” and controversy erupted over his qualifying remark that the show “wouldn’t work” if it featured ethnic minorities. While much of the debate was framed around the racialised construction of Englishness in his remarks, less attention was given to other aspects that construct a nostalgic sense of Englishness. I would posit that the continued success of the TV series following the introduction of ethnic minority characters after this controversy is evidence that ethnic homogeneity was not a dominant attraction of the fictitious Midsomer county. Moreover, the success of the series has continued for close to a decade after the retirement of actor John Nettles as DCI Barnaby, who had been the much-loved star of the TV series since its inception.
A key feature of the series has always been the rural and village setting, and I would suggest that this has material significance in light of True-May’s declaration of the series as a bastion of Englishness. The binary opposite of the rural village is the urban city, and given
that roughly 80% of the UK population resides in an urban area, I would suggest that there is perhaps an allure for the English village as a desired or idealised “other”. My contention is that the Midsomer Murders series constructs a nostalgic sense of Englishness by idealising the rural village as a site for a lost sense of community and a lost connection with nature.
Accounting for the international popularity of the series, I would suggest that this particular nostalgic form of Englishness has a universal appeal because it is rooted in a desire to escape aspects of modernity and return to an authentic life with better connections to community and environment. Key to my analysis will be theories of nostalgia presented by Svetlana Boym, as well as adopting suggestions put forth by others that nostalgia relates to dislocation and idealisation. Pivotal to understanding the idealisation of the English village will be insights into the urban-rural dichotomy and its historical context; and I will be addressing the concept of nation through Anthony Smith among others, and the performance of nation through Judith Butler’s theory of performativity.
1.1 Aims and Structure
The aim of this thesis is to explore the nostalgic construction of Englishness in both the novel and the TV adaption of The Killing’s at Badger’s Drift. While this aim presupposes that there is a nostalgic construction of Englishness in the series, I anticipate that my analysis will reveal how certain elements work together to project a particular image of England and English society that can be demonstrated as nostalgic by way of their idealisation of the past.
Chapter 2 outlines the theory that I will apply to my analysis. I have divided the chapter into four aspects that pertain to the construction of identity and nostalgia. Section 2.1 explores different approaches and theories of nostalgia and establishes a means of determining if something can be considered nostalgic. In section 2.2, I will discuss
Englishness within the context of nostalgia to put forth my suggestions about the links and causes for a nostalgic sense of Englishness. In section 2.3, I discuss the appeal of English villages as a site for reconnecting with landscape and identity, with particular attention given to community aspects. Section 2.4 explores Judith Butler’s theory of performativity to explain the construction of a cultural identity such as Englishness. I then examine the concept of the English gentleman as an example of idealised performativity which can be applied to the analysis. Together, these four sections explain how nostalgia can be understood and offer insight into how it is constructed, as well as explain the construction of cultural identity in the context of Englishness.
Chapter 3 applies this theory to the analysis of how a nostalgic sense of Englishness has been constructed in both the novel and the TV adaptation of The Killings at Badger’s Drift. I have divided this chapter into two sections with relevant subsections; section 3.1 analyses the idealised performativity of the main characters, as well as how certain performativities are reproved. Section 3.2 focuses on the village as a site for nostalgia by arguing that the village is used as a literary trope to idealise a past way of living. I will also analyse how gossip is employed by the novel as a narrative technique for conveying the social norms of an idealised society.
By way of conclusion, Chapter 4 will demonstrate how the different points from my analysis work together to demonstrate the nostalgic construction of Englishness in The Killings at Badger’s Drift, as well as addressing possible areas for further research.
1.2 Previous Research on the Midsomer Murders Series
Despite the longstanding success, there has not been much academic research into the TV series and perhaps even less on the novels. Neil McCaw has made perhaps the most
substantial research to date with at least three pieces of published analysis. In his first publication, he brings attention to “the ways in which both the novel and adaptation utilize the locality of the fictional Badger's Drift and its incumbent personalities to define the microcosm of an idealized national community” (McCaw, “Those Other Villagers” 13), and that the conventional use of the crime genre is reassuring “for a middle-class readership”
(McCaw, “Those Other Villagers” 15). However, he develops his argument around an outside or foreign “other” and concludes that the Oriental moments shed light on the
“processes of identity formation and control” (McCaw, “Those Other Villagers” 27). His second publication examines representations of evil and notes that “the prevailing tendency in UK detective television since the 1980s has been to portray British society in crisis, often in a state of collapse and disintegration” (McCaw, “The Ambiguity of Evil” 23). In his third book-length publication, he dedicates a chapter to the English aesthetics of crime and suggests that audiences of the Midsomer Murders series “are distracted from moral and social concerns by the representation of crime as a kind of pantomimic performance”
(McCaw, Adapting Detective Fiction 124). One important observation he makes which is related to my analysis, is the feature of social capital, which he describes as being “the glue that bonds people together” (McCaw, Adapting Detective Fiction 110). While my analysis is thematically consistent with McCaw in discussions of Englishness and the village setting, unlike McCaw, my analysis focuses on nostalgia as a way of idealising the past to alleviate the dislocation of the present.
Another notable article on the TV series is by Tiffany Bergin who suggests that its international appeal can be attributed to its “deliberate evocation of the British crime fiction/drama tradition” and its use of “the conventions of the British ‘Golden Age’ crime fiction tradition” (Bergin 86), however, I will discuss this article in more detail in section 2.1. The most recent analysis was in 2019 by Stefan Zahlmann who approached the TV
series from the perspectives of thrift and dwelling. His analysis offers insight into the TV series’ concepts of sociability and their links to “the phenomenon of heritage and commitment”, however, he conflates Englishness with Britishness and concludes that the TV series is a “battleground of a society struggling for a modern Britishness” (Zahlmann 479). This conclusion is informed by the debate of race and ethnicity sparked by True-May’s comments, mentioned earlier, but overlooks the cultural distinctions between British and English identities. While ethnic homogeneity might be a nostalgic consideration for some, I contend that it is the culture of English rural life that has a greater nostalgic pull, namely for its perceived sense of community, authentic connection to nature, and a romanticised social structure with less ambiguous social norms.
The aim of my analysis is to examine how nationhood can be expressed through nostalgia in fictional narratives by offering new insight into the nostalgic construction of Englishness in the novel and TV adaptation of The Killings at Badger’s Drift.