A Dying Art

The grand opening of a sculpture park in Angel's Rise gets interrupted by a murder, which is bad manners even by Midsomer standards. Jeff Povey wrote the script with Caroline Graham, and Matt Carter directed, and they give the story a setting that looks as though it should be pleasant and turns out to be anything but.

Barnaby and Nelson arrive to find an opening crowd full of people who would rather be somewhere else. David Bamber's Daniel Fargo has the look of a man who built the park and regrets it, and Charlotte Beaumont's Helena Pitt is the assistant who keeps the whole thing running. The Monkfords are out in force: Jolyon Coy's Fabian and David Gant's Brandon, with Cara Horgan's Rachel trying to keep the family from eating itself. John Hollingworth's Brin Dunne rounds out the guest list, and Manjinder Virk's Dr Kam Karimore is on hand for the official version of events.

The sculpture park is a lovely trick of a location. All those figures standing around looking at the guests, and one of the guests is not getting up. The episode enjoys the irony without labouring it, and the art world gives the suspects plenty of room to be pretentious while they are being interrogated. Every piece in the park has a story attached, and at least one of those stories is the murder. The guests have opinions about the art, which turns out to matter more than anyone expects.

The mystery itself is solid, the sort that rewards paying attention to who argued with whom at the opening. The case comes down to who stood where, and the sculpture park makes everyone stand somewhere visible. The arguments, it turns out, started long before the ribbon was cut.

But it is a pleasing episode with a location you will remember, and a killer who hides in plain sight.