The Night of the Stag

Series Fourteen, Episode Six
The Night of the Stag
Airdate	12 October 2011
Village or Location	Midsomer Abbas Midsomer Herne
Writer	Nicholas Martin
Director	Simon Langton
Episode guide
Previous	The Sleeper Under the Hill
Following	A Sacred Trust

The Night of the Stag is the sixth episode of the fourteenth series of the popular ITV crime drama Midsomer Murders and originally aired on 21st October 2011.

Synopsis

Local bootleggers come under suspicion after the disappearance of a government inspector.

Plot

A VAT inspector goes missing as he hunts for an illicit cider still responsible for brewing The Beast, a potent local hooch. At the Midsomer Abbas spring fayre which celebrates its friendship with Midsomer Herne, DCI Barnaby and DS Jones sample the local cider, while temperance preacher Norman Grigor calls on residents to repent of their drunken ways. Suddenly, Barnaby is violently ill as the body of missing man Peter Slim is found floating in the cider vat. Whilst temperance campaigners, led by fervent, recovered-alcoholic parson Norman Grigor, protest against the Midsomer Abbas May Festival, the body of Peter Slim, a revenue inspector investigating illicit stills, is found dumped in a cider vat. The murder weapon, an apple tree harvester which shook him to death, belongs to boozy cider mill owner Anthony Devereux, a man with something to hide though he denies murder. Then Barnaby discovers a secret connecting Slim to a village girl and a party to that secret, the Reverend Conrad Walker,is murdered. As pub landlord Samuel Quested leads the villagers in the revival of an old fertility and after discovering Rev. Walker’s badly beaten body in his church, Barnaby and Jones find themselves in peril during the night of the stag.

Cast

• Neil Dudgeon as DCI John Barnaby
• Jason Hughes as DS Ben Jones
• Fiona Dolman as Sarah Barnaby
• Tamzin Malleson as Kate Wilding
• Warren Clarke as Samuel Quested
• Francis Magee as Smudgepot
• Ian Peck as Wilberforce
• Bernard Lloyd as Byron Street
• Greg Hicks as Rev Norman Grigor
• Beatrice Comins as Evelyn Grigor
• Niamh Quinn as Prudence
• Denise Black as Chloe Baker
• Natalie Klamar as Esme Baker
• Andrew Havill as Rev Conrad Walker
• Richard Hawley as Will Green
• Stephen Marcus as Silas Trout
• Patrick Ryecart as Anthony Devereux
• Eleanor Yates as Alice Quested
• Jonathan Jaynes as Jonathan Oak
• Richard Bradshaw as Peter Slim
• Jimmy Ryan-Shedden as Abbas Man
• Kelvin Wise as Armed Response Unit
• Ian Mann as Cider Worker (uncredited)
• June Smith as Drunken Floozy (uncredited)

Galleries

Body Count

Peter Slim
Broken neck by being shaken with an apple tree shaker, then dumped in a vat of apple cidar.

Conrad Walker Raises arms across face for protection after preaching to the killers and mercilessly hacked to death with scythes.

Supporting Cast

Norman Grigor

Evelyn Grigor

Samuel Quested

Byron Street

Silas Trout

Anthony Devereux

Alice Quested

Jonathan Oak

Will Green

Smudgepot

Wilberforce

Chloe Baker

Esme Baker

Episode Images

Quotes

Reverend Norman Grigor has gatecrashed a Cider Festival at the local brewery and is preaching fervently about the evils of alcohol. He even accuses the vicar of being a fornicator

"Tell me, Norman. If "the other" is so wrong, how come you've got six children of your own?" – Samuel Quested (crowd laughs)

"Six we know of, that is." – Samuel Quested (more laughter)

"I can assure you, Samuel Quested, that I made those children to glorify the Lord. The act itself gave me no pleasure." – Rev Norman Grigor

"I'm sure your wife would say the same." – Chloe Baker (uproarious laughter)