Midsomer Murders star thinks the show "can go on and on"
Midsomer Murders has amazingly been on the air for 22 years, and it shows no signs of slowing down as it enters its 20th series.
Now lead Neil Dudgeon (John Barnaby) has claimed that it "can go on and on" as he spoke about how the show can "re-energise" itself.
"I think the show can go on and on," he told Digital Spy. "The premise is, 'Something investigation-worthy happens somewhere rural and two policemen turn up to find out what's gone on.' Around that, write any story you want.
"It can be so varied. It can vary tonally. You've got a different setting every week. You've got a largely different cast every week. You can have a darker episode, a more serious episode. You can change everything about it.
"It can be more comedic. It can be more horror. It can be more spooky. It can be dark. You can kind of put anything in there because of the breadth and the style of the show. If there's a formula at all, it's a very loose formula.
"So I think it's got the potential to go on. It can keep re-energising itself."
Dudgeon replaced former lead John Nettles back in 2011, and explained how cast changes keep reinvigorating the series.
"I think obviously people thought, 'What's it going to be like when John leaves, and this new person comes in that I've never heard of?'
"But they seem to have managed to weather that pretty well. And I think other people coming into the show bring a different kind of energy, really. I know that when Jason Hughes left the show, I thought, 'How is this going to be?' and we were very fortunate to find the lovely and brilliant Gwilym Lee.
"The relationship between Barnaby and Nelson was inevitably different to the relationship between Barnaby and [Hughes' character] Ben Jones. I mean, Jason and I were much closer in age than me and Gwilym. You had a more equal relationship in many ways, and then it became a more sort of mentor/mentee kind of relationship.
"That changed again with Nick [Hendrix, playing DS Jamie Winter] – because, again, I keep getting older, and the sergeants keep getting younger! Every time I turn around, there's a new sergeant, and he's younger than the last one!"
Midsomer Murders returns to ITV on Sunday (March 10) at 8pm.
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