‘Murder’ at the town hall!

DID you know that Thame is the second most used location for the filming of Midsomer Murders (The most featured is Beaconsfield), and that the popular TV series is now watched in 193 countries world-wide?

Towersey Morrismen ‘collapse’ after performing at the Midsomer Murders evening in Thame

Put these two facts together, and add in the mix a huge increase in the number of foreign tourists wanting to come and visit the quintessential England that they see portrayed in the programme, and you have a heady brew that is capable of invigorating the local economies of the places featured, including Thame’s -or ‘Causton’ as it is know in Midsomer Murders. Top of the foreign visitors’ lists are pubs and English beer, and they love markets, fetes and festivals – and guess what? Apparently Thame is known to be one of the friendliest welcomes in the South East!

Seeing the potential for its market towns and villages, South Oxfordshire District Council was quick to register the domain ‘http://www.visitmidsomer.com/‘ and has since produced a raft of initiatives, including Midsomer Murder Trails and leaflets, and made connections with Tour Companies, to bring in these valuable visitors and their spending power.

To explain the phenomenon and how it can be embraced to work for local businesses, a special event, including a dramatised murder mystery play by Thame Players and a dancing display from Towersey Morris, was held at Thame town hall last Thursday, September 4, to an invited audience including local businesses such as Bed & Breakfast owners, Eateries, pubs, book shops and gift shops, etc. They heard first from author, Chris Behan, who wrote the book ‘Exploring Midsomer’. He spoke of how he, a Liverpudlian, first came to Thame in 1959 as a visitor then, and how since he had came to mourn the loss of the railway station and the cobbled streets, now mostly gone.

Chris mentioned many Thame locations featured in the various episodes of Midsomer Murders including Thame Park, the Fuji photographic shop, Rumsey’s Chocolaterie (transformed into a camera shop in the fictional town of ‘Luxton’), Thame town hall (featuring Barnaby’s wife singing Christmas carols outside in ‘A Maiden’s Splendour’), Market House in Upper High Street and Thame market, to name just a few.

Sarah Osborne, one of SODC’s Midsomer Murders promotion team, revealed some stunning figures, including that visitor numbers to the Midsomer Murders website, half of whom are from abroad, had increased by 50% each year from 2011. Rather than just a short-term blip, Sara pointed out that many of the countries now seeing Midsomer Murders are seeing the first episodes and that it has been estimated that the interest for such programmes lasts about a decade after the series itself finishes, and so a lucrative 15 years is on the cards for businesses involved.

For a future promotional idea, Chris Behan showed a photograph of a special red plaque (along the lines of the historic blue plaques that Thame already has for the previous homes of famous, local people) which the owner of the Argyle Pub in Henley had stuck on the wall outside commemorating the episodes filmed in his pub. The number of tourist visitors to his pub has since increased amazingly!

Because Thame is a border town between Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, close to Haddenham & Thame Parkway station and on the 280 bus route, Sarah pointed out that Thame is ideally placed as a centre for visits to Buckinghamshire villages featured in Midsomer Murders, like Haddenham and Long Crendon, and to Oxford city.

For Thame, she said: “Midsomer Murders is the icing on the tourist cake.”

Any businesses who want to know more about the possibilities for them from the Midsomer Murders phenomenon, can contact Sarah Osborne or the Economic Development team via the website: http://www.visitmidsomer.com/contact/