Famous artists including Magritte are suspects in this glossy, grisly whodunnit – and it’s loads of fun
I don’t know about art, but I know what I like: cosy crime. I’m excited by Flemish series This Is Not a Murder Mystery (U&Drama, Wednesday, 8pm, and streaming on Channel 4), which offers a classy shot of both. Silent movie credits tell us the year is 1936. An English aristocrat is hosting a private show of surrealist artists, who are all on the cusp of major celebrity. Following a wild party a week before the show, we see René Magritte wake up in bed, next to a dead woman. Their heads have been wrapped in shrouds, in a ghoulish recreation of his own painting The Lovers. Fame can lead artists to lose their heads, but this is something else.
The beak arrive in the double-act form of DCI Thistlethwaite and DC Quant. They lock down the estate, along with its bohemian guests: Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, Man Ray, performance artist Sheila Legge and the American war photographer Lee Miller. Magritte is determined to clear his name, but as the show approaches, the theatrical murders mount up. Each crime pays twisted homage to the masterpieces of the artists present, who are also suspects.
