Leap of FAITH

MATTHEW LEWIS on bringing Reverend Richard Coles' much-loved mystery novel to TV

- STEVEN PERKINS

MURDER BEFORE EVENSONG TUESDAY, 9PM, 5 DRAMA

A country rector becomes an amateur sleuth after discovering a dead body inside his church in 5's much-anticipated new whodunnit Murder Before Evensong.

Based on the bestselling 2022 debut novel of the same name by Reverend Richard Coles, the six-part series follows Canon Daniel Clement (played by Harry Potter and All Creatures Great and Small star Matthew Lewis) as he teams up with DS Neil Vanloo (Happy Valley's Amit Shah) to solve the crime that has shocked the sleepy (fictional) English village of Champton.

But when Neil suggests that the killing was a case of mistaken identity, and that Daniel himself might have been the intended victim, the investigation takes on a new level of urgency for the curious cleric.

Here, in an exclusive interview, Matthew, 36, tells TV Times why the role feels heaven-sent...

Where do we find Daniel at the start of the drama? It's the 1980s, and Champton is very much the ideal of quaint village life - cricket on the village green and all that kind of thing. Daniel is the rector there, and he lives a very mundane, simple life doing country services.

But when he finds that somebody has been murdered in his church, it throws the entire congregation and community into upheaval, and Daniel is the only person who can keep it all together whilst, at the same time, being the nosy person that he is, trying to solve the mystery himself.