Midsomer Murders is coming back to ITV in the UK with the next episode titled For Death Prepare.
UK viewers have not seen much of John Barnaby (played by Neil Dudgeon) since the summer of 2022 and there is plenty of excitement around the upcoming instalment.
Sarah Barnaby star Fiona Dolman spoke exclusively to Express.co.uk about how the episode was filmed during the Covid lockdown.
She explained: “When we filmed it, it was April 2021 during Covid so all the theatres had closed and all the shows had stopped.
“The West End was shut down and we were filming at The Mill Theatre.
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“It was the first time any of us had walked into a theatre in so long and it was at that time when you still didn’t know if everything was going back to normal again, so it felt incredibly emotional just to do that.”
Opening up on watching some of her co-stars perform for the theatre-themed episode, she said she was unable to hold back tears.
She added: “Also I got to sit in the audience with Kevin Whately, I got to watch Alan Halsall do his wonderful turn of The Pirate King, that was just wonderful to sit and relax and watch people do their stuff.
“Tessa Wong, who plays Phoebe, she just has… they describe Sarah as having the voice of an angel but she has the voice of an angel, literally.
“I cried every time she sang, it was brilliant and rather beautiful to listen to.”
The official synopsis for the episode reads: “The Midsomer Mummers, an amateur operatic society, are busy rehearsing for their charity concert when the body of an unknown man is found in their theatre.
“The investigation quickly becomes a race to discover who is desperate to be centre stage.”
Kevin Whately is Jeremy Whittingdale in the upcoming instalment and he opened up about how he learned a lot about opera through his daughter Kitty.
He said: “My daughter is a professional opera singer and I do shows with her and an accompanist where my wife and I punctuate her concerts with readings.
“She astonishes us, she is much more technically adept than we ever were as actors – it’s much more disciplined.
“We were folk singers when we were younger but opera singing is like being a full-time athlete.”
For Death Prepare airs on ITV on May 28
