Agatha Raisin
- TV comedy drama
- Sky One / Sky Max
- 2014 - 2023
- 27 episodes (4 series)
Crime-solving comedy drama starring Ashley Jensen as an amateur detective. Also features Jamie Glover, Mathew Horne, Matt McCooey, Jason Barnett, Lucy Liemann and more.
Episode menu
Series 1, Episode 1 - Walkers Of Dembley
Further details
Having spent years toiling away in London, Agatha has relocated to the Cotswolds. However, her hopes of a quiet life are dashed when murders start occurring in her village. Drawn into their mysteries, Agatha attempts to solve the crimes... often in rather unorthodox ways.
In the first episode, a walker is found dead on a local baronet's land soon after he declares war on her rambling group for trespassing on his land.
Eager to solve the crime, Agatha convinces James that they should pose as a married couple and go undercover in the victim's rambling group. Their pretence proves tricky to keep up in the tiny Cotswolds community, particularly for James, who has just started to date someone else.
However, when someone tries to violently warn Agatha off the case, the pair pull together to uncover the truth. Delving into the locals' lives, they find that not all is as it seems. But can they expose Dembley's killer?
Notes
This episode is also known as The Walkers Of Dembley.
Broadcast details
- Date
- Tuesday 7th June 2016
- Time
- 9pm
- Channel
- Sky One
- Length
- 60 minutes
Repeats
Show past repeats
Date | Time | Channel |
---|---|---|
Wednesday 8th June 2016 | 9:00pm | Sky2 |
Saturday 11th June 2016 | 9:00pm | Sky1 |
Sunday 12th June 2016 | 11:00pm | Sky2 |
Monday 13th June 2016 | 9:00pm | Sky2 |
Thursday 13th June 2019 | 9:00pm | Sky2 |
Saturday 13th July 2019 | 12:00am | Sky2 |
Monday 14th February 2022 | 9:00pm | Sky Max |
Saturday 19th February 2022 | 7:00pm | Sky Max |
Cast & crew
Ashley Jensen | Agatha Raisin |
Jamie Glover | James Lacey |
Mathew Horne | Roy Silver |
Matt McCooey | DC Bill Wong |
Jason Barnett | DI/DCI Denzel Wilkes |
Lucy Liemann | Sarah Bloxby |
Jason Merrells | Sir Charles Fraith |
Katy Wix | Gemma Simpson |
June Watson | Mrs Josephs |
Maddie Monti | Kyra Simpson |
Daisy Beaumont | Mary Fortune |
Lara Rossi | Kristy King |
Debbie Chazen | Jessica Tarnick |
Robin McCallum | Gustav |
Rebecca Night | Deborah Camden |
Paul Venables | Jeff Benson |
Emma Stansfield | Alice Dewhurst |
Diljohn Singh | Khusan |
Andy Williams | Joe Noakes |
Chris Murray | Writer |
Sam Costin | Script Editor |
Geoffrey Sax | Director |
Matthew Mulot | Producer |
Cameron Roach | Executive Producer |
Michele Buck | Executive Producer |
Barry Ryan | Executive Producer |
Stewart Harcourt | Executive Producer |
David Walton | Executive Producer |
Anthony Combes | Editor |
Ian Fisher | Production Designer |
Susie Parriss | Casting Director |
Pam Downe | Costume Designer |
Helen Tucker | Make-up Designer |
Rupert Gregson-Williams | Composer |
Christopher Willis | Composer |
Dale McCready | Director of Photography |
Simon Morris | 1st Assistant Director |
Geoffrey Sax | Series Consultant |
Press
One sitcom I won't be sticking with is Sky One's Agatha Raisin and in fact I'm surprised I made it through the first episode. I have to say I didn't have a lot of knowledge of the central character played by Ashley Jensen as I missed the pilot episode 'The Quiche of Death.' But I was intrigued enough to give the first episode partly as I believed it to be a pastiche of Agatha Christie whodunnits and Midsomer Murders-esque small town crime shows. How wrong I was, as instead of giving us a gentler A Touch of Cloth, writers Stewart Harcourt and M.C. Beaton seem more focused on concentrating on their heroine's love life. From what I could ascertain from this first episode Agatha was a rather ditzy PR woman who people believed had a good ability to solve crimes. However a lot of what happened in this instalment saw Agatha stumbling around in the dark for the majority of the time before realising that the answer was under her nose from the outset. In fact Agatha's main aim throughout the episode seemed to be to snag James Lacey (Jamie Glover), the attached man of her dreams who was posing as her husband as part of an undercover operation to root out the murderer of the head of the local rambling society. I personally feel as if crime shows such as Midsomer Murders are in need of some sort of spoof but Agatha Raisin doesn't even attempt to do that. I found it instead to be a strange mix of crime drama, romantic comedy and full on slapstick humour with none of these elements really being given time to breathe. In fact I would go as far as to say that the funniest sequence in this first episode of Agatha Raisin was the sequence in which Agatha was trapped inside a Wendy House with several other characters. It's a shame that the show is such a dud as I'm a fan of Ashley Jensen but she's ill-served here by a rather annoying character and a poorly written script. The rest of the cast don't fare much better with Matthew Horne being given a one-note character as Agatha's camp assistant from London. In fact it's only Katy Wix as Agatha's formidable cleaning lady Gemma who's able to rise above the awful material and produce something vaguely resembling comedy. Apart from Wix's performance there's very little positives that I can bestow on Agatha Raisin and between this show and Rovers it seems that Sky One has currently gone off the boil when it comes to producing decent comedies.
Matt, The Custard TV, 12th June 2016Ashley Jensen is back as the sleuth whose life is packed with just-moved-to-the-country-based cliches. Former colleague Roy (Mathew Horne) turns up after being dumped, bringing a naked yogi with him. Agatha joins a rambling group and is soon dragged into a murder investigation after one of their members is found dead on a landowner's estate. And so begins a flimsy but entertaining whodunnit in which Agatha is reunited with her ex, James (Jamie Glover), as they go undercover.
Hannah Verdier, The Guardian, 7th June 2016