It's A Mystery! ★★★★

Murder, it seems, is very good for business. Give us a dead body, a locked room and a handful of suspicious characters, and we’ll happily settle in for the evening, whether the crime is being committed between the pages of an Agatha Christie novel, in the cinema, or even on the small screen in the deadly destination of Cabot Cove. Tim Benzie has turned that latter enduring obsession into a worldwide success, presenting Solve-Along-A-Murder-She-Wrote around the globe.

Now, with It’s A Mystery, he asks a rather more intriguing question: why do we love murder so much?

Benzie sets about answering it with the enthusiasm of a man who has spent rather too much time thinking about fictional homicide than is probably healthy. It’s A Mystery! is part comedy lecture, part history lesson, and part murder mystery of its own, with a Cluedo board providing the suitably familiar and appropriate backdrop.

Benzie constructs his own murder mystery scenario, featuring the death of Lady Caroline Harcourt, recruiting three members of the audience to be the chief suspects. Their characters and potential motives are teased throughout the show, giving the proceedings a pleasingly devious second narrative. As Benzie takes us on a tour through the history and mechanics of the genre, the question of who might have committed his fictional crime lurks in the background. It’s an elegant device, keeping the audience invested even as the show delves into the slightly more scholarly territory of detective fiction and he dissects the essential ingredients of a good murder mystery.

What makes It’s A Mystery more than simply an affectionate history of the whodunnit, however, is the way Benzie relates the genre’s appeal to his own life. His introduction to murder mysteries while growing up becomes intertwined with his personal experience of discovering himself as a gay man. The detective story, with its hidden clues, coded meanings, hiding in plain sight, and secrets waiting to be uncovered, becomes an unexpectedly apt metaphor for understanding a part of yourself that you may not be able to articulate.

There are plenty of deliciously niche morsels for the mystery enthusiast, too. Among the more entertaining tidbits is the story of the Agatha Christie estate taking legal action against Murder, She Wrote. It is exactly the sort of wonderfully arcane piece of murder-mystery trivia that lends the show some twists you’ll be thinking about on the way home.

Australian Benzie is not quite as restrained with his language as your average cosy crime novelist; the kind of words that might make Miss Marple reach for the smelling salts. But it adds to the host’s down-to-earth charm and ensures that this never feels like a dry lecture in detective fiction.

It’s a Mystery! is funny, affectionate, and occasionally surprisingly touching, taking something that Benzie has clearly loved for much of his life and examining why it has such a powerful hold on all of us. As host, he understands that the pleasure of a mystery is as much about the journey as the solution, and he gives us just enough information to keep the little grey cells ticking over.