One of the earliest Midsomer Murders, Death of a Hollow Man sees Barnaby and Troy caught up in the world of amateur theatricals.

With a script actually written by Murders creator Caroline Graham herself, the plot centres around a production of Amadeus by a local amdram group, Barnaby has found himself helping out backstage as his wife Joyce has a role in the production, preparations are interrupted however by the murder of local woman Agnes Gray, found drowned in the river, before the investigation can even start however there is major drama on the plays opening night as the none too popular Esslyn Carmichael (played by Nicholas Prevost) cuts his own throat live on stage (someone had swapped knives for the plays suicide ending, during the intermission).

As usual a great cast has been assembled for Death of a Hollow Man with starring roles for Bernard Hepton as the ageing director Harold Winstanley, who once had a shot at the big time and believes he is working beneath himself, Debra Stephenson also appears as the sexy new wife of Provost whilst Sarah Badel plays his embittered first wife, other well known names apearing include Angela Pleasance, Janine Duvitski, Geoffrey Hutchings and Richard Huw. There’s a nice degree of continuity about the Midsomer Murders series, for instance in this Troy meets Barnaby’s daughter Cully for the first time and also appearing is the character of Nico who later becomes Cully’s love interest and ends up accompanying Barnaby on one of his later cases as he researches a TV cop show part. Midsomer Murders is now the old man of the ITV 2 hour detective drama and certainly shows no signs of a slowing down in quality. As always first rate mystery entertainment.

Extras: As on all the Midsomer DVD releases there are cast filmographies and a Midsomer Map.