It’s been a while since we had a new good old fashioned mystery to watch, but with the upcoming return of Jonathan Creek to the BBC, we’ll be getting a feature length slab of what the hell just happened. While Caroline Quinten won’t be reprising her role as Maddie Magellan, Alan Davies will be back as the eponymous Johnny with a whole new mad as a box of hallucinating frogs crime to get to the bottom of.
Fortunately, he won’t be going it along, because nowadays, Jonathan Creek rolls with his wife and crime fighting partner, Polly, so the two of them will be doing everything they can to crack the case at Daemons’ Roost. In all fairness, the character has been around since she was introduced in the 2013 special episode and she’ll be played once again by Sarah Alexander, who also reprised the role for Series 5 in 2014.
There’s no word of an air date from the BBC, or even a rough idea about when to expect the show to hit TV screens in the UK, but then the Beeb is notorious for teasing news and then surprising viewers with the arrival of a show out of nowhere. What we do know is that the return will be a one-off 90-minute special that will air on BBC 1, which means that it’ll either be a Christmas, New Year or Easter Break treat if the air date for the last three special episodes are anything to go by.
The story for the Daemons’ Roost special episode sees Johnathan and Polly investigating strange goings on at the eponymous stately home where in the 19th Century Jacob Surtees, purported to be a powerful dark sorcerer. The due get drawn into the case when the current resident of the home, horror film director, Nathan Clore, suffers a massive stroke just as he’s about to confide in his stepdaughter, Alison, about the truth behind what happened to her family there.
Following the stroke, Nathan is left paralysed and unable to communicate with Alison anymore, so through the acquaintance of her husband she’s able to summon up the power of Jonathan Creek to try to get to the bottom of what happened. However, things take a dark twist when the grim rituals from the macabre history of Daemons’ Roost are revived with terrifying results for everyone involved. If that isn’t enough to get you all heeby jeebied right the way from your knocking knees to your tingling Spidey senses then you’re probably a zombie or some other night creature… maybe an owl.
In addition to Alan Davies and Sarah Alexander, the cast also includes Warwick Davies of Star Wars and Life’s Too Short fame, so we’re expecting at least a little comedy might in the mix. There’s also Emun Elliot (Game Of Thrones), Ken Bones (Dr Who), Rosalind March (Calendar Girls), Jason Barnett (Bad Education) and Jo Martin (Still Open All Hours).
Series creator David Renwick has written the special episode and from the sound of things it could be one of the creepiest in the history of the show. Sandy Johnson (Cradle To Grave) will direct Daemons’ Roost, Rosemary McGowan produces and Steven Canny and David Renwick are down as executive producers. While we’re not 100% sure what an executive producer actually does, it sounds impressive, so…
