Artists in Crime (1990)

When an artist's model is murdered at Tatler's End, a country house owned by renowned painter Agatha Troy and used to mentor private students, Inspector Roderick Alleyn and his sidekick Inspector Fox are called in to investigate. The dead model, Sonia Gluck, was not popular with many of the students, and it becomes apparent that she was a blackmailer. However, As Alleyn becomes more drawn to the owner Agatha Troy, he finds himself conflicted in the case, especially as she is one of the murder suspects. This was the pilot episode for the 1990's series of Inspector Alleyn, which ran for only 2 series from 1993-94, and was broadcast on December 23rd 1990. While Belinda Lang and the underrated William Simons are present and correct in their roles as Agatha Troy and Inspector Fox, the lead role was originally played by Simon Williams. When he was unavailable for the series 3 years later in 1993, Patrick Malahide took over. Among the cast (and suspects) are Leslee Udwin, Piers Gibbon, Georgia Allen, Nick Reading, Pippa Hinchley, Andrew Baker and Peta Lily, while Ursula Howells plays Alleyn's mother and Siri Neal (from kids TV series Moondial) plays the model and victim Sonia Gluck. Please note that my original copy of both the pilot episode and first episode of Series 1 snapped, which left me having to borrow a friend's recent recording of those two episodes (so apologies for the adverts in this). However, the other episodes are as they were originally broadcast. There was also a New Zealand series of Ngaio Marsh's detective, broadcast in 1977 and starring George Baker as Inspector Alleyn in 4 mysteries. They seem to be even rarer to find than this series, and sadly I do not have any of those episodes, though I do remember seeing Died in the Wool on TV many years ago. A warning that there is some nudity here but as this is from a recording from the Drama channel, I have no idea if any nudity has been removed from the broadcast.