'Murder Before Evensong' Readies a September Sermon

Grantchester may be heading into its final season in 2026, but there's already a brand new Hot Vicar fresh from the oven for fans of British mysteries to enjoy. Acorn TV and Channel 5 announced in late 2024 that they would team up for a brand-new series, Murder Before Evensong. A period piece mystery set in the late 1980s, the series will star Matthew Lewis, who famously went from ugly duckling Neville Longbottom in Harry Potter's early films to the hottest of the Hogwarts graduates by a country mile by the time the franchise ended.

Based on The Canon Clement Mysteries, the best-selling novels by celebrity pastor* Reverend Richard Coles, the six-part series will adapt the first book from which the series draws its title. Lewis plays Canon Daniel Clement, the young vicar of an ancient church who finds himself embroiled in a murder committed right in his own house of worship. With the killer confirmed to be one of his congregants, the local detective decides that Clement will make a fine sidekick for his investigation, only for the two to become a crime-solving powerhouse duo.

(*Yes, the U.K. has celebrity vicars, who see their participation in cultural TV series and reality shows like Strictly Come Dancing as part and parcel of their ministry and making the Church of England accessible to all.)

Coles' series is up to five books now, so there's plenty more where this comes from, should Acorn TV find itself with another Art Detective-style hit on its hands. The trailer certainly looks promising with a touch of that old-style PBS Mystery! type show.

Here's the series' synopsis:

Murder Before Evensong is based on the first novel in the best-selling series, the Canon Clement Mysteries, by British author the Reverend Richard Coles, and is set in 1980s England, when Canon Daniel Clement, the Rector of Champton, finds himself unexpectedly entangled in a murder case when a dead body turns up in the church.  

 Daniel shares Champton rectory with his widowed mother, Audrey, and his two dachshunds, Cosmo and Hilda. When Daniel announces a plan to modernize the church, the parish is suddenly divided. And then a body is found dead at the back of the church. As the police move in and the bodies start piling up, Daniel is the only one who can try and keep his fractured community together… and catch a killer.  

Lewis, who PBS viewers will now best from All Creatures Great & Small, stars alongside Amanda Redman (The Good Karma Hospital) as his mother, Audrey. The cast also includes Amit Shah (Happy Valley) as DS Neil Vanloo, Marion Bailey (The Crown) as Kath, Adam James (The Day of the Jackal) as Bernard De Floures, Meghan Treadway (One Day) as Honor De Floures, Amanda Hadingue (The Queen) as Dora, Tamzin Outhwaite (Murder Is Easy) as Stella Harper, Francis Magee (Kin) as Edgy, Nina Toussaint-White (Showtrial) as Jane Thwaite, and newcomer Alexander Delamain as Alex De Floures.

Nick Hicks-Beach (Lewis) will write all episodes of the new adaptation, and director David Moore (Shetland) will helm all installments. Rev. Coles & Radford Neville executive produce for The Lighthouse, Catherine Mackin & Don Klees for Acorn TV/Acorn Media Enterprises, and Paul Testar, Commissioning Editor, Drama for Channel 5.

Murder Before Evensong will debut on Acorn TV starting Monday, September 29, 2025, and will stream one episode a week on Mondays through the end of October. Channel 5 has not set a premiere date, but the series is also expected to debut in the U.K. before the end of 2025.