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Murder Most Horrid
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Murder Most Horrid was a BBC black comedy anthology series starring comedian Dawn French. It ran for four series runs, in 1991, 1994, 1996 and 1999.
Created by Paul Smith, who also co-created Colin's Sandwich (with Terry Kyan, below) and has written for The Brittas Empire, among other programmes, the series starred French as a different character in each episode. Many episodes were directed by the noted director Bob Spiers, who also worked with French on The Comic Strip Presents... and French and Saunders.
Most episodes parodied the thriller and murder mystery genres with one notable episode lampooning the trials and tribulations of being a children's presenter in general, and Blue Peter in particular.
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Encyclopedia
Murder Most Horrid was a BBC black comedy anthology series starring comedian Dawn French. It ran for four series runs, in 1991, 1994, 1996 and 1999.
Created by Paul Smith, who also co-created Colin's Sandwich (with Terry Kyan, below) and has written for The Brittas Empire, among other programmes, the series starred French as a different character in each episode. Many episodes were directed by the noted director Bob Spiers, who also worked with French on The Comic Strip Presents... and French and Saunders.
Most episodes parodied the thriller and murder mystery genres with one notable episode lampooning the trials and tribulations of being a children's presenter in general, and Blue Peter in particular. In 1998, this episode ("Murder at Tea-Time") was repeated to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Blue Peter, as part of a section entitled Spoof Peter, which also featured (among others) the Python skit "How to Do It".
Each episode was standalone, and the episodes were written by different writers or writing teams with several contributing multiple episodes across the four series. Among these writers, the pairing of series-creator Paul Smith with Terry Kyan, (who had previously collaborated on Not the Nine O'clock News and Alas Smith and Jones) is particularly notable. The two would subsequently create and write Bonjour la Classe, starring Nigel Planer.
Other series writers included Private Eye editor and Have I Got News For You stalwart Ian Hislop; Press Gangs Steven Moffat, award-winning Children's author Anthony Horowitz, Nick Newman and John O'Farrell.
Episodes and Dawn French's characters
Series 1 (1991)
- "The Case of the Missing" - with Dawn as WPC Diane Softly, traffic officer
- The Girl from Ipanema - with Dawn as Maria, a Brazilian immigrant who moves in with the Howling family.
- He Died a Death - with Dawn as Judy Talent, an actress in a play
- "A Determined Woman" - with Dawn as Rita Proops, a scientist
- Murder at Tea Time - with Dawn as Bunty Bresslaw, presenter of children's TV show
Write Away. Mrs. Hat and Mrs. Red - with Dawn as Katie Hatcliffe and Sonya Redfern, two identical looking women with opposite personalities
| # | Title | Writer | Director | Guest actors | UK air date |
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Series 2 (1994)
- Overkill - with Dawn as Tina Mellish, social worker turned reluctant assassin
- "Lady Luck" - with Dawn as Denise Cunningham, hairdresser
- "A Severe Case of Death" - with Dawn as Maud Jenkins / 'Dr Adams', Victorian maid turned cross-dressing doctor
- "We All Hate Granny" - with Dawn as Lily Gibbs, grandmother
- "Mangez Merveillac" - with Dawn as Verity Hodge, travel and cookery writer
- "Smashing Bird" - with Dawn as Vikky, nightclub singer
Series 3 (1996)
- Girl Friday - with Dawn as Sally Fairfax, P.A.
- A Life or Death Operation - with Dawn as Kate Marshall, surgeon and TV presenter
- Dying Live - with Dawn as Daisy Talwinning, sacked abattoir worker
- The Body Politic - with Dawn as Linda Bryce, schoolteacher and wife of the Leader of the Opposition
- Confess - with Dawn as Wendy Hodge, police sergeant
- Dead on Time - with Dawn as The Grim Reaper
Series 4 (1999)
- Frozen - with Dawn as Lily Wood-Newton, churchgoer and pillar of the community
- Going Solo - with Dawn as Tracey Phillips, yachtswoman
- Whoopi Stone - with Dawn as Barbara Greaves / Whoopi Stone, police constable turned 'Queen of New York'
- Confessions of a Murderer - with Dawn as Harriet Snellgrove, serial confessor and nuisance
- Elvis, Jesus and Zack - with Dawn as Jill Tanner, head of the Obituaries Department at Broadcast One
- Dinner at Tiffany's - with Dawn as Tiffany Drapes, school dinner lady
Notable guest stars
- Jane Asher (The Girl from Ipanema)
- David Bamber (Smashing Bird)
- Frances Barber (Dinner at Tiffany's)
- Thelma Barlow (Dinner at Tiffany's)
- David Battley (Frozen)
- Lucy Benjamin (A Severe Case of Death)
- Hywel Bennett (Smashing Bird)
- John Bird (A Life or Death Operation)
- Hugh Bonneville (Confessions of a Murderer)
- Jane Booker (Murder at Tea Time, Mangez Merveillac)
- Jim Broadbent (A Determined Woman)
- Philip Martin Brown (Smashing Bird)
- Ann Bryson (Lady Luck)
- Kathy Burke (A Determined Woman)
- Jim Carter (Mrs. Hat and Mrs. Red, Dying Live, Going Solo)
- Kenneth Cranham (He Died A Death)
- Amanda Donohoe (Overkill)
- Minnie Driver (Confess)
- James Fleet (We All Hate Granny)
- Dexter Fletcher (Murder at Tea Time)
- Jamie Foreman (Whoopi Stone)
- Brigit Forsyth (A Life or Death Operation)
- John Fortune (A Severe Case of Death)
- Sean Gallagher (Lady Luck)
- Graeme Garden (Confessions of a Murderer)
- Nigel Havers (Girl Friday)
- Liam Hess (Going Solo)
- Sean Hughes (Elvis, Jesus and Zack)
- Philip Jackson (Mangez Merveillac, Confessions of a Murderer)
- Martin Jarvis (The Girl from Ipanema)
- Janette Krankie (Elvis, Jesus and Zack)
- Sarah Lancashire (Going Solo)
- Chris Langham (Elvis, Jesus and Zack)
- Hugh Laurie (The Body Politic)
- Helen Lederer (Dying Live)
- Roger Lloyd Pack (Confess)
- Mark McGann (Smashing Bird)
- Kevin McNally (He Died A Death, Mangez Merveillac)
- Geraldine McNulty (Murder at Tea Time, Girl Friday, Dinner at Tiffany's)
- Ben Miller (He Died A Death)
- Stephen Moore (He Died A Death)
- Sophie Okonedo (Dead on Time)
- Bill Paterson (The Case of the Missing)
- Paul Reynolds (Elvis, Jesus and Zack)
- Clive Russell (Confess)
- Colin Salmon (Overkill)
- Joanna Scanlan (Frozen)
- Peter Serafinowicz (Dinner at Tiffany's)
- Tony Slattery (He Died A Death)
- Timothy Spall (The Case of the Missing)
- John Thomson (Dying Live)
- Harriet Thorpe (He Died A Death, Mrs. Hat and Mrs. Red)
- Peter Vaughan (Overkill)
- Danny Webb (Dead on Time)
- Timothy West (A Severe Case of Death)
- Victoria Wicks (We All Hate Granny)
- Ray Winstone (Smashing Bird)
- Jake Wood (Elvis, Jesus and Zack)
The Murders
French usually played the murderer or the murder victim in each episode. The murders ranged from the straightforward to the bizarre, with the murder weapon shown on a pedestal during the end credits. The murders (and French's character's part in them) are listed below.
- The Case of the Missing - French plays neither the murderer or the victim. The murder in this episode is committed by a group of Freemasons. French plays a WPC Softly, a traffic police officer who is mysteriously put in charge of the murder case by the head of the freemasons in the area, The Burrough Commander. After eliminating all the suspects (who are very blatantly involved in the murder, although are all freemasons), Softly finally accuses herself of the crime, because she is the only person without an alibi.
- The Girl from Ipanema - French plays apparently neither the murderer nor the murder victim. In the episode, she finds out she is working for the man who owns the mine which is destroying her village and after witnessing him kill his wife, she seduces him over a period of time and finally marries him. In her letter back to her father in Brazil, she reveals that her husband was acting crazily on their wedding night, wanting to go skinny dipping while drunk, but in fact it was she herself who had talked him into doing it, after she had neglected to tell him that she had "forgotten" to re-fill the pool. In this sense she is the murderer.
- He Died a Death - French plays apparently neither murderer nor murder victim, though she does at one point confess to having shot her fellow actor Tony Sparkle (played by Tony Slattery), while in a play in which his character is shot.
- A Determined Woman - French plays the MURDERER. She lashes out at her dim-witted husband and strikes him with a spanner, as his increasingly strange behaviour (brought about by the fact that he has been unwittingly speaking to a future version of her who has travelled back in time) has driven her to breaking point.
- Murder at Tea Time - French plays the MURDER VICTIM. She is suffocated when the cap of a washing-up liquid bottle is placed over the end of her air tube while her face is in plaster.
- Mrs. Hat and Mrs. Red - French plays the MURDER VICTIM, and potentially the MURDERER. She plays two women who look identical. When both of French's characters face off, with Mrs Red's husband in the middle, one of them is murdered. It is never made explicit who actually committed the murder, though it is heavily implied that both Ms Hatcliffe and Mr Redfern are responsible.
- Overkill - French plays the MURDERER. She shoots several security men with a shotgun, kills two people with poisoned darts, one person with a metal arrow and one person with cyanide and scorpion venom before being blown up herself (by accident). An assassin (played by Amanda Donohoe) also shoots her mark (played by Peter Vaughan) before accidentally hanging herself.
- Lady Luck - French plays the MURDERER. She stabs her husband in the back with a letter opener. Though we do not see the murder on screen, her responsibility for this murder is implied.
- A Severe Case of Death - French plays the MURDERER. She serves her blackmailer port laced with poison.
- We All Hate Granny - French appears to be the MURDERER. She leaves the gas supply running in her daughter and son-in-law's house overnight, causing it to explode when they wake up and her daughter lights a cigarette. However, her culpability is only implied, the couple in question having tried to murder her numerous times by this point, and the 'murder' appearing to be a very plausible accident. It is also implied that she poisoned her abusive late husband.
- Mangez Merveillac - French appears to be the MURDER VICTIM. She is cooked as part of a village feast and served to tourists, though a post-credits sequence shows she has survived and that this was a ruse designed to bring more tourists and Hollywood interest to the village.
- Smashing Bird - French plays the MURDERER in the sense that she deliberately sets up a situation where the four gang members who murdered her boyfriend (played by Ray Winstone) all shoot each other while aiming for her head.
- Girl Friday - French plays the MURDERER. She throttles her boss's wife immediately after he hits his wife with a heavy trophy in a fit of rage. She lets him believe that he is responsible for the death (which may have occurred anyway).
- A Life or Death Operation - French plays the MURDERER, though the man she ultimately kills is not the person she had planned to murder (having already failed to kill her intended victim by driving over her and giving her a lethal injection). She smothers her victim with a pillow while he is in intensive care, believing him to be her intended victim.
- Dying Live - French plays the MURDERER. She gasses the entire Panadorian government (and a TV presenter) during a live broadcast in which a charismatic rebel leader (later to become her husband) was to be executed.
- The Body Politic - French plays the MURDERER. She accidentally kills a policeman with a stray crossbow arrow and stabs another man with an arrow in self-defence. A third man dies by falling down a flight of stairs while advancing on her. The catalyst for the deaths is the discovery of bodies under her house from murders that occurred twelve years earlier.
- Confess - French plays neither murderer nor murder victim. The murder in the episode turns out to have been committed by her police colleague (played by Minnie Driver), who shot another police colleague (who was also her lover).
- Dead on Time - French plays neither murderer nor murder victim, though she spends the entire episode trying to set up the murder of a housewife by her husband. In the event, the husband is killed in an accident.
- Frozen - French plays the MURDERER. She initially believes she has crushed a refrigerator repairman to death when trying to make love to him, and only realises that he survived this ordeal after he has spent the night in her deep freeze (and, obviously, frozen to death).
- Going Solo - French plays the MURDERER. She drowns her fellow yachtswoman as they are being rescued from their capsized boat. Though we do not see the murder on screen, her responsibility is implied.
- Whoopi Stone - French plays the MURDERER. She shoots a gangster while working undercover to win his trust, and later teams up with the remaining gangsters and arranges the deaths of the senior policemen who involved her in the operation.
- Confessions of a Murderer - French plays the MURDERER. She hits a detective on the head with a mallet, causing him to fall off the top of the mountain they have just climbed.
- Elvis, Jesus and Zack - French plays neither murderer nor murder victim. No murder takes place in the episode, the idea being that when a celebrity is widely reported as dead, the media myth becomes self-perpetuating. As French's character starts the rumours that lead to the 'death' of a rock star (played by Sean Hughes), she is effectively the 'murderer' in this context.
- Dinner at Tiffany's - French plays the MURDERER. She poisons three colleagues (though the first two are accidental): one with a sandwich, one with a cup of tea (who then falls out of a window as a result and hangs herself on her very long plait) and the third (her intended target) with her sports drink. She suffocates a fourth victim (the object of her desire, who has spurned her affections and fired her) by smothering her with an extremely thick, creamy chocolate cake.
Awards
Video and DVD releases
Video
Two videos of the series were released by the BBC in 1996, through BBC Worldwide/Talkback (the former of which became 2|entertain). Both were released on May 7, 1996, the first containing three episodes from series one and the second, three episodes from series two. These two series were not repeated on British television as often as the later series, and as a result, episodes not featured on the videos released by the BBC (The Case of the Missing, He Died A Death, Mrs. Hat and Mrs. Red, A Severe Case of Death, We All Hate Granny and Smashing Bird) have proven fairly difficult to view.
The Girl from Ipanema/A Determined Woman/Murder at Tea-Time (BBCV5854) EAN: 5032680800767Murder Most Horrid: Overkill/Lady Luck/Mangez Merveillac (BBCV5855) EAN: 5014503585525
DVD (Region 2)
- Murder Most Horrid: Volume 1 was released by Fremantle Media on the 10th March, 2008.
External links
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