Send in the Clowns

There is something about a travelling circus that unsettles a village before it has done a single thing wrong, and Ferabbees Circus does not disappoint. It arrives in Midsomer trailing sinister clown sightings and threatening notes, along with circus acts that look less like entertainment than a dare with mortality. The locals are spooked, and with reason. What starts as a season of ghoulish fun turns into a murder inquiry, and Barnaby finds that the case asks him to face down his own fears as well as the usual village obfuscation.

The investigation pulls Barnaby and DS Jamie Winter into the heart of the circus community, and the Ferabbee family enterprise proves to be far more dangerous than mere entertainment. Around them move the performers: Terry 'Groucho' Bellini, Daniella Bellini, Raoul Delgado and Les 'Oucho' Morrison, plus the Ferabbees themselves, Harry and Freya, whose family business sits at the centre of it all. Barnaby has to look past the greasepaint and the showmanship to find the pattern in the violence, and the case gets under his skin in a way the usual village secrets do not.

Julia Gilbert wrote the episode with Caroline Graham, and Nicholas Laughland directed. Neil Dudgeon and Nick Hendrix carry the investigation, with Fiona Dolman as Sarah, Annette Badland as Fleur Perkins, Lorraine Ashbourne as Daniella Bellini, Jonathan Bonnici as Raoul Delgado, Lorraine Burroughs as Freya Ferabbee, Kevin Eldon as Terry 'Groucho' Bellini, Andrew Gower as Harry Ferabbee and Mike Grady as Les 'Oucho' Morrison. It is a cast that knows how to make minor characters count.

There is a reason the show keeps coming back to the big top. The veneer of gaiety peels away to reveal something genuinely sinister, and a clown is a fine figure to carry menace in, if you can bear to look at one. And for all that the episode is playing with frights, the mystery underneath is a solid one. The trick is to keep watching past the face paint.