The Marlow Murder Club

I knew nothing of the books so had no expectations at all.

Samantha Bond is pretty much always an actor worth watching and that led me to give it a go. Jo Martin I only knew from Dr Who, so not much to go on there.

The show is very much in the British groove of slower paced, gentle murder. It's a style that I enjoy very much for relatively unchallenging and 'pretty' crime.

I thoroughly enjoyed both parts, the acting was, I thought, very good, the plot was strong enough and it did of course look suitably 'British' - or to be more precise, 'English'. Nothing wrong with that, England does have some very picturesque towns and villages.

Less comedic than Father Brown and Sister Boniface, perhaps a little lighter than Midsomer Murders, I would happily watch more if they choose to make it.

Good, watchable and enjoyable, but maybe never going to be amongst the greats, it's still miles better than so many other shows.

If you're not sure, I'd certainly advise you to give it a go.

Having waded through too many sub-standard and lacklustre murder mystery dramas in recent times I was not optimistic that this would mount to much. How pleasantly surprised my wife and I were. Beautifully presented and shot along the River Thames and the small town of Marlow, this is well acted (on the whole), likeable and enjoyable. Don't expect this to be Morse or Lewis standard, it isn't as predictable as Death in Paradise and the acting, script and production is better than Sister Boniface, Madame Blanc and numerous other low key murder mystery farces. And don't get me started on the dreadful Johnny Vegas Murder series.....

I like Jo Martin and Samantha Bond so was excited to see this.

This is not a deep story, and the murder aside, you could have substituted almost any other crime in there - who stole the cookies for the bake sale - and it could have worked. Three people end up helping the police, of course using some life experience and knowledge coming from their individual jobs.

This reminded me of Murder, She Wrote when I used to watch it with my grandmother. Everything was just a happy fun time solving a mystery. None of the deeper darkness you'd get with Vera. Even Death in Paradise, as light as it can be, feels like more is at stake.

The acting can be hit or miss from character to character, or even scene to scene, but there are some good performances, even if not always believable. There are some very archetypical characters, and there are a couple deeper stories with the vicars wife and the SIA that I would love to see fleshed out more than the main character story.

If nothing else, it does a great job of showing off a bit of the UK I would have never heard of, painting that idyllic mythical calmer, gentler English country atmosphere.

If nothing else,

I haven't read the original books but decided to watch the show anyway, especially when I saw Samantha Bond as the main lead - I find her to be a wonderful actress.

At first I struggled a bit to find interest in the plot line as it was quite stagnant and there were constant dead ends that began to put me off of watching it altogether. Majority of the acting was well done though which turned me away from turning off the show! It was all very natural and most of the actors did a wonderful job bringing their characters to life. There were however certain parts where I slightly disliked both the dialogue and mannerisms of a couple of the actors but in the end, it didn't bother me too much.

By the second part of the story I became a lot more interested by the sudden plot twists and the pace that the story was now going. It definitely picked up near the end of the show, as the plot was finally coming together which made the ending very satisfying.

I don't watch modern murder mysteries often (between 2020 and present time) as I find that they can sometimes be very lost in translation from the original books that they're originally based on, so I didn't have high expectations but was pleasantly surprised with The Marlow Murder Club! It's a very good show for both casual murder mystery watchers (like myself) and crime fanatics that like a gripping, intricate storyline.

I was expecting a flop, how wrong was I !! It was set in stunning scenery, the acting was pretty good and it made me giggle in places. The characters jumped out of the screen they were so realistic and it was nice to see a very British series, that shone as much as the sun that was beating down on Marlow at the time of filming. There were times that I was expected pots of jam to sail onto the screen accompanied with the coral sounds of Jerusalem, which would have made me smile even more. The only reason I gave it a 9 and not a 10 is because the ending, I felt was a bit cheesy. Here's hoping they commission another series.