MIDSOMER MADNESS

IN 1962 I watched Darryl F Zanuck’s classic ‘The Longest Day’ in the Granada cinema in Aylesbury. As far as I recall, the only appearance of a woman was featured on a photograph shown by one of the male characters to another.
The 109 actors credited include just three women, all in cameo roles. This is hardly surprising, considering the theme of the film, shot in France, was the 1944 D-Day landings. In its military context, anything more than the fleeting appearance of a woman would have been unrealistic, as there was only one woman involved and there was no scope for romantic encounters. However, in today’s age of political correctness and female equality, this would have provoked an outcry from gender equalitarians.
The basis of this assumption is the gradual evolvement of ‘Midsomer Murders’ into a totally unrealistic representation of village life in England. Response to objections to the absence of non-white characters in the series has gone way over the top. In some recent episodes the majority of participants in these sleepy Buckinghamshire villages are of African, Indian or Oriental heritage.
I grew up in the Chilterns and for 60 years have been frequenting such picturesque villages as Hambledon, Turville, Little Missenden and Long Crendon where many of the scenes are shot. Even today the only non-whites there are likely to be tourists, often on the Midsomer trail. Even the neighbouring towns of Beaconsfield and Amersham, also featured, are predominantly white.
In these villages, the fetes, cricket on the green and tea at the vicarage are still predominantly the preserve of middle-class English white people. That’s just the way it is.
Once the incongruity was realised, the idyllic village setting was phased out. More recent episodes have drifted further away from the original rural theme of murders in a middle-class English village. In order to accommodate the racial mix of characters, the plots feature much more urban situations. There are now episodes involving drug smuggling, discotheques, brothels and business corruption.
The point at issue is the denial of an element of English life, the portrayal of which is in danger of being confined to the scrapheap. And it seems to be the result of obsession with a distorted kind of equal rights. These villages require white actors and actresses. Has anybody calculated whether people with hazel eyes or auburn hair are appropriately represented? Even entertainment seems to be surrendered to the interests of political correctness.
Miscasting can be disastrous. Anybody who has seen King Henry VIII portrayed as a cockney thug (by Ray Winstone) or Mozart as a gibbering idiot (by Tom Hulce in ‘Amadeus’) will know what I mean. It would not surprise me if there has already been a female Othello or a black Sherlock Holmes,
It is not the casting of ethnic characters in ‘Midsomer Murders’ that is at fault. It is the miscasting of the villages.
David Worboys’s opinions are his own and are not necessarily representative of those of the publishers, advertisers or sponsors.