If any television genre could be made with generative AI, it must surely be cosy crime. These gentle and escapist detective dramas are so formulaic that ChatGPT could probably knock up a six-part series in seconds. Just enter the keywords “close-knit rural village”, “amateur sleuth” and “any decade between 1950 and 1990” and hey presto!

Fortunately, there’s enough original authorial voice behind Murder Before Evensong to elevate it above the merely generic. That voice belongs to the Rev Richard Coles , whose 2022 novel featuring Canon Daniel Clement has now been adapted for TV.

An openly gay pop star at a time when contemporaries like George Michael and Freddie Mercury were obscuring their sexuality, Coles then became that most unfashionable of beings – a Church of England vicar. B

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