Loss of life Valley evaluation – Timothy Spall’s high quality new detective drama is a comfy, witty pleasure | Tv

By some curious dint of arithmetic, one in all life’s best pleasures is coming throughout one thing that’s just a bit bit higher than it must be. It’s such rarity, such a deal with – and to pessimists, such a shock to the system – that it turns into disproportionately, although nonetheless genuinely, pleasant.

Such a phenomenon is Loss of life Valley, a brand new Sunday evening comedy drama wherein an newbie sleuth helps the police clear up crimes in a bucolic village – often English, this time Welsh – with an astronomically excessive homicide fee and a suspect beneath each gooseberry bush and felt hat. To this point, so Gently cum Midsomer cum Marple cum Agatha Raisin cum pull-up-a-chair-and-a-teacake-and-enjoy.

And it does hit that cosy spot. Timothy Spall, who I think was searching for a technique to recharge his actorly batteries after placing each little bit of energy he had into his efficiency as Peter Farquhar in 2023’s harrowing The Sixth Commandment, stars because the newbie sleuth, John Chapel. Chapel is a retired actor (if there ever is such a factor, darling!) who made his title in a long-running police procedural collection as its eponymous detective, Caesar. The primary episode opens, as the primary episodes of latest cosy crime collection ought to, with a case so clear it couldn’t probably be the rest: lifeless property developer slumped over his desk, a gun in his hand, clearly having killed himself.

However is it apparent? Why would a person planning such a factor have a lunch in his diary for the following day and a vacation booked for Dubai? DS Janie Mallowan (Gwyneth Keyworth), treading the fantastic line between perky and infuriating with nary a wobble (Chapel calls her “scintillatingly irritating”, which is each an ideal description and a mark of the writing high quality), reckons she ought to no less than ask the neighbours in the event that they noticed something suspicious on the day he died. As a devotee of Caesar, she is awestruck when the primary door she bangs on is answered by none aside from Chapel himself. And Chapel is aware of it was homicide. How? “As a result of actors observe.” The sufferer was an orderly man – a gunshot was too messy. And since “motion is character” – and the sufferer was a thoughtful man, who designed bespoke birthday playing cards for his cleaner’s son and would by no means have left her to search out his physique when she was due within the subsequent day.

Janie visits the deceased’s high-maintenance spouse – “I shouldn’t cry. Simply had my lids performed” – to search out out if he had any enemies. “Any beef with anybody? Doesn’t must be huge beef. Small beef. Mince?” Not even a meatball’s value, is the reply.

And we’re off. A number of purple herrings scent the air however Chapel and Janie stay undeterred for lengthy of their hunt for clues. (“I’m the inspiration,” says Chapel to Janie as he brings his actorly powers to bear on the proof. “You’re the perspiration.”)

Why would a person who fired an electrician for wonky socket work in a present residence not additionally fireplace a decorator for lacking a patch of wall? Why would a girl with a love of conventional tea towels need to purchase a new-build? A cancelled bacon supply right here, an empty foxglove mattress there, an opportunity comment from a baby of unsure parentage over the way in which and shortly the threads are drawn collectively to search out the means, motive, alternative – and the assassin (by the tip of the hour). Their subsequent journey includes a member of Janie’s mum’s strolling group dying in an obvious fall (guess what!) and is value watching for a lot of causes, not least Mum’s description of the lifeless lady: “Too skinny by half. And cussed eyes.”

Inside every case situation are the longer arcs involving Chapel’s grief for his late spouse and Janie’s struggles over the lack of her greatest pal, which season the jollity with one thing a little bit extra piquant.

So, it’s Midsomer Murders –with jokes. It’s Rosemary and Thyme – however good. Or a pastoral Previous Canine New Tips, if you happen to favor. Take your choose. It’s additionally witty and enjoyable and bounces together with sufficient verve to get you previous any footling objections it’s a must to both kind or content material earlier than they will make their method from mind to mouth. Not all the things must be The Wire. Typically you may simply chill out and luxuriate in a distinct factor performed very properly certainly.