Agatha Raisin

To say that Agatha Raisin is daft would be an understatement. In all honesty, it makes Midsomer Murders look like NYPD Blue. Harsh? Well, you haven’t yet seen the moment in this feature-length series-two opener that finds Ashley Jensen’s amateur detective falling from a wall into a wheelie bin. Or the sequence where she goes to get her hair cut by a supposedly upmarket stylist and emerges with what looks like Glenn Close’s gigantic perm from Fatal Attraction. Believe me, it’s tricky to sift the clues and red herrings of a murder mystery when we keep on getting distracted by comic interludes that feel like they’ve been lifted from old Keeping Up Appearances scripts.

Having said all this, there is still fun to be had, particularly when Mathew Horne is on screen as Aggie’s scene-stealing sleuthing sidekick Roy. “Slow down – I’m mid- to late-30s!” he yells at one point while trying to chase a suspect along the streets of picturesque Carsley. I could have done with more of him and less of the over-the-top pratfalling.