Death in Paradise Christmas Special, BBC One review - who killed Santa Claus?

Though Death in Paradise is an Anglo-French production filmed in Guadeloupe, in the French West Indies, the Frenchness seems to have mysteriously leaked away.

Where Sara Martins was a long-standing regular as DS Camille Bordey, and other French actors have rotated through the cast, the only glimmer of Gallicness remaining in this seasonal special was the vestigial presence of Elizabeth Bourgine as Catherine Bordey (Camille’s mum, pictured below with Danny John-Jules as Dwayne Myers). Otherwise we might have been on Jamaica or Barbados or St Lucia, such was the general lack of any trace of the language of Voltaire and Balzac.

This seems a shame, since this blending of cultures (albeit somewhat superficial) under the blazing eye of the Caribbean sun distinguished the show from other – if you will – policiers. Without it, we are left with what has already been characterised as “an undemanding detective show, with nice Caribbean scenery”, or to put it another way, “harmless nonsense, nice palm trees”. And, to be fair, the critics aren’t always wrong.

But anyway the franchise keeps trundling along, and here we were introduced to another new detective who has arrived on the imaginary island of Saint Marie from Blighty, DI Mervin Wilson. He’s played by Don Gilet – who made a guest appearance in Death in Paradise in 2015, opposite Kris Marshall’s DI Humphrey Goodman – who just happened to be on the island at this Christmas season because he was trying to track down the mother who he’d never met. He managed to find the house she’d lived in, but too late – his long-lost parent was already deceased.

However, his visit was not, after all, in vain. It happened to coincide with the strange murders of two men dressed as Father Christmas, with yet a third Santa wounded by a gunshot. Curiouser still, it appeared that each victim had been shot at a different location by the same gun at exactly the same time. How often does that happen, eh?

Since DI Wilson was here, and the previous London detective DI Neville Parker (Ralf Little) had quit at the end of Series 13 (13!), Wilson got the call from London to step in and head up the investigation. He does at least have a family connection to the island, though why, in our post-colonial era, some unseen presence in London gets to decide who does what in the Saint Marie police department is never quite clear, especially when the island’s police force can boast the commanding presence of Commissioner Selwyn Patterson (Don Warrington, pictured below).

Be that as it may, screenwriter James Hall’s tale sprinkled on some extra Yuletide sparkle by being based on the history of a Christmas pop song, "A Christmas Paradise", which had been a hit way back in the Eighties. Though not quite as catchy as this year’s Starmer-satirising "Freezing This Christmas", which has topped the download charts despite falling foul of one of the BBC’s farcical airplay bans, "A Christmas Paradise" became one of those perennial Yuletide hits, and a dependable source of royalties. Questions of copyright and to whom these royalties might be payable lay at the root of Saint Marie’s Santa killings, one of the victims being the songwriter, Tony Hurst (Steven Hartley).

All this was moderately diverting, and Gilet brings a nice steely edge to his detective work, but 90 minutes of it was more than enough. Amiable escapism, lovely beaches.

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