BBC News - Midsomer Murders producer suspended over race row

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It is almost a truism to say that those locations which are fewer familiar with ethnic minorities are more promising to be afflicted by their presence

End Quote Read Mark's thoughts in full 15 March 2011 Last updated at 10:16 GMT Midsomer Murders producer suspended over race row

The maker of ITV1's Midsomer Murders has been suspended afterward mentioning the drama "wouldn't go" if there was racial variety in the show.

Brian True-May, who co-created the sequence, told the Radio Times the long-running drama was a "last bastion of Englishness" and should linger that course.

Production company All3Media told the BBC Mr True-May had been suspended pending an internal inquiry.

ITV said it was "shocked and revolted" by the producer's comments.

"We are in urgent disputes with All3Media...who have informed us that they have launched an immediate investigation into the matter," a lecturer joined.

'Certain audience'

Mr True-May told the magazine: "We are a cosmopolitan society in this country, but if you watch Midsomer you wouldn't think so.

"I've never been picked up above that, but quite honestly I wouldn't want to change it," he said.

Of his all-white portrayal of rural life in Britain's murder capital he said: "Maybe I'm not politically correct."

The programme - which has sprint for 14 series - appealed to a "certain audience", he said.

Mr True-May added: "We just don't have ethnic minorities contained. Because it wouldn't be the English village with them. It fair wouldn't work."

Asked why "Englishness" could not contain additional races who are well represented in modern society, he said: "Well, it should do, and possibly I'm not politically correct.

"I'm attempting to make something that appeals to a certain crowd,Torchwood, which seems to succeed. And I don't want to alteration it."

A study in 2006 base the agenda apt be "strikingly unpopular" with spectators from ethnic minorities.

Speaking to the BBC's Colin Paterson by the Royal Television Society Awards, Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes said he did not agree with Mr True-May's "emotions".

"I think it's not true - I live in the country in Dorset and in Dorchester there is quite a variegated population, so it's not my detection," he said.

However he said he had never faced oppression to include any ethnic characters in his drama series.

Speaking to Radio 4's Today, Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins said he did not look a problem as the setting for the show was an "old-fashioned English village" and such villages were not known for their multi-ethnicity.

"The elucidation of old formed English countryside here I'm scared, doesn't include multi-ethnicity," he said.

Swearing ban

However Ash Atalla, producer of sitcoms The Office and the IT audience, said it was a "generational object", where people of a certain old liked to deem that "Englishness" was all-white.

"Midsomer Murders namely not because someone favor me. I'm too juvenile and I detect the show prefer dim," he said.

"We must be detailed about questing out something that offends us and then complaining. I would no absence the viewers of Midsomer Murders complaining almost someone I liked."

He later told 5 live: "Interestingly the show's been going for years and years, there hasn't been a black actor and nobody's batted an eyelid until the co-creator himself pointed it out to the world."

Midsomer Murders, based on the writings along Caroline Graham, was fired in 1997 and has featured 251 deaths, 222 of which were murders.

The producer has banned swearing, violence and sex scenes from the show but has tackled diversity issues other than ethnicity.

"If it's incest, blackmail, lesbianism, homosexuality... terrific, put it in, for people can believe that people can assassinate for any of those causes," he told Radio Times.

Actor Jason Hughes, who has played the programme's DS Jones, said he had mused why Midsomer proceeded to have no ethnic minorities.

"I've surprised that myself and I don't know," he said.

"This isn't an urban drama and it isn't about multiculturalism. That's not to say that there isn't a place for multiculturalism in the show. But that's actually not up to me to determine.

"I don't consider that we would entire suddenly go, 'a dark gardener in Midsomer? You can't have that'. I think we'd all go, 'great, fantastic'."

Actor John Nettles's last advent on the drama was saw by an mean of 7.one million viewers final month.

The 67-year-old bowed out of the series after 14 years playing DCI Tom Barnaby.

Actor Neil Dudgeon ambition replace the chief character as DCI John Barnaby,STATE MIND, Tom's cousin, when the series returns to TV screens afterward week.