Deaths and explosions in Wallingford and Dorchester will be at the centre of ITV’s Christmas schedule as the mayhem that is Midsomer Murders hits the screen with the latest episode Days of Misrule.

This week, the cast were in Dorchester and in the courtyard behind Down to Earth in St Martin’s Street, Wallingford, putting the final touches to the two-hour episode.

Tim Piggott-Smith is the guest star alongside regulars John Nettles as Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby and Jason Hughes as his sidekick, Detective Sergeant Ben Jones.

The episode starts at Christmas in Midsomer with an explosion in a haulage yard and a body in a trunk floating in a lake.

And the episode includes, a little unbelievably, Barnaby and Jones on manoeuvres with the Territorial Army.

But it’s all good fun in the best tradition of the series, which attracts millions of viewers in more than 200 countries from Afghanistan to Zambia.

Wallingford is the centre of the Midsomer world as Causton.

And the town, the town hall, Market Place and Corn Exchange are familiar in thousands of homes.

Wallingford took centre stage for the first Midsomer Murders rally earlier this year,where fans from as far away as Sweden and America enjoyed a trip through the town to see the locations where episodes are filmed.

And with the Midsomer death toll topping 215, one American enthusiast compared it with Chicago in the 1920s — just a little more genteel. So far, there have been 188 murders, 11 accidental deaths and 10 suicides.

Six residents, incredibly, have died from natural causes.

Murder victims have met their ends via a candlestick, a doped horse, a pitchfork, a Celtic spear, liquid nicotine, a billhook, toxic fungi, a slide projector, hemlock, vintage claret, a poisonous frog, an arrow and King Neptune’s trident.

It’s a very dangerous place to live.

Midsomer centres on south Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, with filming also taking place in Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, Warborough, Nettlebed, Stanton St John and Thame.

Mr Nettles, who will be enjoying his festive break in Jersey when the latest episode is screened, said: “I’m spending Christmas with my grandchildren and that’s a great delight to me.”

He will also be spending some of his break at his home in Stratford-upon-Avon.

He is currently making his 12th series of Midsomer Murders.

He said: “I think the new episode for Christmas is suitable viewing for the time of year.

“I don’t think anyone takes the deaths seriously — it’s part of the culture of the British whodunnit that death is sanitised.”

Mr Nettles confessed to two secret desires – to have a guest spot in CSI Miami and to persuade Sharon Stone to appear in Midsomer Murders.

wallingford@oxfordmail.co.uk