In the 1930s there were two massive breakthroughs in the world of creativity. In the arts, post war movements like Surrealism and Cubism changed the way we looked at the world. In literature, cosy crime authors like Agatha Christie changed the way we looked at murder. Put them together and what have you got? This is Not a Murder Mystery.
The year is 1936, and in an opulent English country manor in West Sussex a private exhibition of some of the world’s top surrealist artists is being prepared (in a nice touch, the series provides this information via a silent film style title cards). Lord James himself is delayed in London, but the artists assembled are invited to take full advantage of his hospitality while they wait for the exhibition to make them rich beyond their wildest dreams.
These are wild times, and for artists on the cutting-edge, wild parties (or at least, a lot of wild dance moves) are a way of life. But when painter René Magritte (Pierre Gervais) wakes up next to a dead woman – with the body arranged in such a way as to suggest one of his own famous paintings – the question has to be asked: is murder the new frontier in art?
The title of this murder mystery series is a twist on Magritte’s most famous painting – you know the one, it’s a picture of a pipe with the caption “This is not a pipe”. Unfortunately the murder weapons around the manor are a bit more solid, with a revolver shown lying on the stairs before we even get to the first corpse.
Magritte might have been dubbed “the future of surrealist painting… after me of course” by Dali, but his artistic credentials aren’t enough to put him above suspicion. Once the actual police arrive – that’d be DCI Thistlethwaite (Stephen Tompkinson), who’s decided to retire after he solves his 365th murder, and DC Quant (Donna Banya) – they promptly lock down the estate, giving us the classic cosy crime set up: a bunch of suspects stuck in an extremely luxurious and stylish location trying to figure out which one of them did it.
With his floppy hair and square-shouldered suits, the very tall Magritte might seem more suited to modelling work than painting, but he’s going to have to take on a whole new role – that of detective – if he’s going to clear his name. His wife Georgette (Mathilde Warnier) and his larger-than-life agent ELT Mesens (Geert Van Rampelberg) eventually break through the cordon, but as far as mystery solving goes, he’s on his own. Fortunately, while Magritte might be a suspect, the police don’t seem all that worried about him sneaking around questioning suspects and eavesdropping on suspicious conversations (of which there are many).
There’s quite the line-up of famous (and flamboyant) artists here, including Salvador Dali (Iñaki Mur), Max Ernst (Mike Hoffmann), photographer Lee Miller (Florence Hall), Man Ray (Frank Bourke), and performance artist Sheila Legge (Lauren Versnick), all of whom were actual surrealist artists. The producers have said they largely cast unknowns because they didn’t want the actors to overshadow their characters, and in many cases the resemblance to the real-life versions is uncanny.
There’s plenty of art world easter eggs and surrealist icons woven into the plot, but you don’t have to be an expert in art history to have a lot of fun here. The setting is stunning, the suspects are flamboyant, and the mystery is full of twists – lucrative inheritances, secret family connections and dodgy staff are only the tip of the iceberg. And the understandably flustered Magritte makes for a perfect detective; his hair alone is ideally suited to brushing back with his hand when the stakes are high.
It quickly becomes clear that there’s more at risk here than just one man’s reputation. Not only do some of the most famous artists in Europe have a murderer in their midst, but the killer isn’t content to stop at just one victim. Soon the body count is on the rise - including Man Ray’s pet lobster DaVinci, who didn’t survive the trip to the UK (we can probably let the killer off the hook for that one). It’s all classic cosy crime, only here the suspects are the artists, and the murder weapon is their art.
One of the many nods to art history in this very arty series is the way that the murders are all connected to the work of the artists staying at Monkton House. The killer is very keen on using items created by or linked to the artists – and when, for example, there’s a murder based on a memorable Dali image of a crucifixion, it’s quite a sight to behold.
As the fatal examples of modern art pile up, it turns out the killer is both lethal and educational. This is Not a Murder Mystery is classic cosy crime that’ll leave you feeling smarter for having watched it – and you might just learn how to spot a killer as well.
This Is Not A Murder Mystery is now streaming at SBS On Demand.
