Episode Thoughts by Gawn Gringer

Gawn Grainger happily put on a smock and straw hat to join the cast of MIDSOMER MURDERS.

“I play Lesley Flux, which is a great name for a character. He is a retired geography teacher who has a penchant for the history of Midsomer. For Lesley and his wife, the only way you can understand history is to live history, so he sometimes dresses up in eccentric clothes.

“I wore a smock and straw hat in one scene and Anita Carey, who plays my wife, dresses up as a milkmaid. That’s what happens behind closed doors at their house!”

In The House in the Woods, Lesley and Barbara Flux come under the scrutiny of DCI Barnaby (John Nettles) after a double murder at a haunted cottage near Midsomer Newton. The couple, who have written a book on local ghosts, show a suspicious interest in the house.

Says Gawn: “It was great fun to play someone as eccentric as Lesley Flux and it’s a treat to be in ITV’s most popular series. We filmed in beautiful countryside in Oxfordshire and the locations were lovely.”

Gawn has a busy autumn on ITV1 as he also appears in Foyle’s War, playing a policeman opposite Michael Kitchen. “DCS Fielding is a completely different character from Lesley Flux. He appears to be hard and a person of ill temper but he’s actually very sensitive.”

Gawn, who is married to the actress Zoë Wanamaker, divides his time between London and a home in Wiltshire.

He played Eden Thackeray in Dalziel and Pascoe and his other credits include The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, The Glass, Christmas Carol, When We are Married, Shadow of the Noose, Missing From Home and the feature films Love and Death on Long Island, The Raggedy Rawney and Janice Beard: 45 words per minute.