Murderville review – almost every scene is torturous cringe
msn.comwhich ran on BBC Three from 2015-17, was one of the more innovative British comedies of the past decade. A hybrid of sitcom, reality show, spoof and grand-scale prank, it starred King Gary’s Tom Davis as DI Sleet, a homicide detective who was helped by a different celebrity sidekick each week.
The twist: the celebrity was not given the script, forcing them to improvise, under Davis’s deliberately off-putting tutelage, through a torrent of ridiculous interactions with suspects, culminating in them being asked to identify the killer.
It was a startling flash of bottled chaos that deserves to be cherished. It doesn’t deserve the new US remake, Murderville (Netflix), which hacks off the concept’s eccentric rough edges, then makes a mess of the less interesting show that’s left.
As the sleeker title implies, Murderville streamlines the idea, and it makes one big change that does have a logic to it. The original was set in a town populated by celebrities, played by impressionists. “Gordon Ramsay” was Sleet’s boss, while “Simon Cowell” was the town mayor and so on, which added another layer of absurdity but complicated the format.
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