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Midsomer Rhapsody is the eighth episode of the eighth series of the popular ITV crime drama Midsomer Murders and was originally aired on 2nd October 2005.

Synopsis[]

DCI Barnaby and DS Scott investigate the murder of Arthur Leggott. The man had recently moved into a care home but was found dead in his house. He was a respected music teacher and had been a close friend of Joan Alder the late, great composer. There had been rumours that Leggott may have had in his belongings a rare piece of sheet music from Alder's early years. When such a piece turns up at auction, Barnaby is convinced it was stolen in the first place. Joan Alder's husband, her agent, a young woman who now claims to be her daughter, her putative father and an antique dealer are all suspects. As the death count rises the field of suspects narrows, but the solution lies in a letter handwritten by Joan Alder and the infatuation of someone who loved her in their youth.

Plot[]

In Badger's Drift, a retired music teacher, Arthur Leggott is battered to death in his up-for-auction cottage, after absconding from the Cedar's care home to search for a document in his files. Leggott was once a teacher for the late composer, Joan Alder, who was famous for her Midsomer Rhapsody. Barnaby and Scott speculate as to whether he might have had something connected to her, a valuable musical score perhaps.

Leggott's will verified that he had left all his possessions to the Joan Alder Society which was run by Owen Swinscoe and Alan Thorpe, who was married to Joan's sister, Melody. The society was housed in the restored Alder family home which also served as a museum dedicated to Joan. When questioned, Swinscoe claimed that Michael Maybury hated the museum.

Scott was then tasked with a search of Leggott's effects up for auction, but finds nothing. After the auction of Leggott's belongings, however, dealer Harvey Crane discovered in a box lot what appeared to be an early version of Midsomer Rhapsody among his purchases. He offered to sell it to Joan's former agent, Laura Crawford, for £50,000 but then reached a deal with Swinscoe for £120,000, subject to authentication. An excited Swinscoe believed that the handwriting on the manuscript showed that Joan was working on the score while still a schoolgirl, and a second hand was also noted.

At the opening of Joan Alder House museum, Laura stunned the attendees by introducing a young woman, Sarah, as Joan's long-lost daughter. Listening from outside, a local vagrant, Hedge, seems to reel in shock and is hit by builder, Joe Smeeton, who was driving past. Barnaby eventually realizes Hedge is John Farrow, Joan Alder's husband, long thought to be dead, and Sarah is his daughter. Smeeton was on the property looking for money owed by Swinscoe.

Bullard did find evidence of another person's hand in writing the Rhapsody. John, meanwhile, sold Swinscoe a love letter written by Joan in order to get cash to buy Sarah dinner. When Swinscoe examined the letter, he spotted something that made him realise the musical score was a fake. After a drunken and argumentative evening in the pub that night, he was pushed from a bridge to drown in the creek.

It transpired that Joe Smeeton was "there for" Joan Alder upon her return from South America, decades previously. He is an unfriendly, cantankerous man, angry over the fact his wife has left him for Joan's widow, Maybury. His bellicose nature and eventual assault on Swinscoe gets him banned from the Badgers Inn and he has to be taken in hand by his son, Lee. Lee is questioned by Scott the night Crane is killed, while Lee was transporting pints to his dad waiting in their truck, and again inside the museum after Swinscoe's death while he was working and Scott was searching for evidence. Lee pointed him toward the letter Swinscoe had hidden.

Joan's mother Peggy was then preparing for her wedding to fellow pensioner Charlie Speight. Barnaby, however, misses the wedding when he and Scott realize who it was that had access to Joan handwriting samples, and who had 30 year old paper from Leggott's house.

Cast[]

Galleries[]

Body Count[]

Prior to the Episode

In the Episode

Supporting Cast[]

Episode Images[]

Quotes[]

DCI Barnaby: "Where were you last Wednesday night 'round about midnight?"
Joe Smeeton: "What?"
DCI Barnaby: "Night of Arthur's murder."
Joe Smeeton: "About 50 yards from the Badgers. I fell in a ditch. Couldn't get up."
— DCI Barnaby interviewing notorious drunkard Joe Smeeton.


"You have a lot in common with popular music, Inspector. Crude and repetitive!"
Alan Thorpe to DCI Barnaby in the station interview room.

Notes[]

The following actors and actresses who appeared in this episode have also appeared in the following episodes:

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