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TV Quickfire: Neil Dudgeon on why Midsomer Murders has endured for 20 years

Neil Dudgeon (58) returns to the role of DCI John Barnaby as detective drama Midsomer Murders turns 20 this month. We quizzed him about the new series

Neil Dudgeon stars as as DCI John Barnaby in Midsomer Murders 20
Neil Dudgeon stars as as DCI John Barnaby in Midsomer Murders 20 Neil Dudgeon stars as as DCI John Barnaby in Midsomer Murders 20

WHY DO YOU THINK MIDSOMER MURDERS HAS PROVED SO TIMELESS?

Because it keeps reinventing itself. There's four regular characters and you've got 15 or so other new actors coming in [each series] with a new script, a new story and a whole new milieu. The format is so open: Something bad happens in the countryside, somewhere, and some police come, and then you can write whatever you want around that. You can write wildly different episodes and you can have all sorts of bizarre and unlikely, but real, things going on in the Midsomer world.

ARE THERE ENOUGH RESIDENTS LEFT FOR THE NEXT TWO DECADES?

Now, you see, there's a statistical thing there. I always imagine that Midsomer, the county, is the size of the real area we cover while filming: south Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and some other bits. And so in 20 years, there's been about 350 murders, so that's about 17 murders a year over a large area. I mean, that's nothing. More people are dying in farming accidents than being murdered in Midsomer, so it's a bit of a fallacy when people say, 'Oh is anyone left in that village?' It's not a village. It's a huge county.

WHAT KIND OF DEATHS CAN WE EXPECT TO SEE THIS SEASON?

Well, part of the joy of the show is the many brilliant ways the writers come up with for killing people in Midsomer. [This season] there's a boiled monk and there's a wedding one, where the bride [played by Kelly Brook] disappears at some point during the wedding. And, well, I think you can guess the rest. She dies in a rather interesting way...

HOW DOES NEW PATHOLOGIST, DR FLEUR PERKINS (ANNETTE BADLAND) FIT IN?

[Annette] is wonderful. The team thought it would be interesting to introduce a character who would test Barnaby, somebody with whom he would have a more provocative relationship, and Fleur does just that. She is not what we are expecting to begin with and she very much challenges Barnaby and Winter in a number of ways – she is obviously very good at her job and she can be quite direct, which is brilliant.

AND IS BARNABY'S RELATIONSHIP WITH HIS WORK PARTNER, DS JAMIE WINTER (NICK HENDRIX), STILL ON TRACK?

They get along beautifully and are having a lot of fun together, as happens in reality for Nick and I. Gradually we have found out how we each work and the great thing for me is the trust we have in each other. A huge amount of the work we do on set is done together, so we spend an awful lot of time together and some of the more complicated dialogue is usually conversations between the two of us, so you are dependent on one another.

WHO DO YOU HAVE GUEST STARRING THIS SEASON?

We have the wonderful Elaine Paige, who was full of marvellous and entertaining stories. Another episode centres on a comic book convention and the hilarious Bill Bailey guests. We took over a small village with this convention and we had loads of supporting artists all dressed in these mad, futuristic costumes including one of our favourite regular characters who turns out to be a bit of a hardcore comic book fan.

CAN YOU EVER SEE YOURSELF HANGING UP YOUR WARRANT CARD? YOUR PREDECESSOR, JOHN NETTLES, DID OVER 80 EPISODES.

Blimey. I've only done about 45, so I'm barely half way. I don't know whether I could last that long. I can't really imagine not carrying on. But there may come a point when I'm too old and physically and mentally decrepit to be able to do it.

:: Midsomer Murders is on ITV, Sundays. Catch up at itv.com