Acorn TV & Channel 5 to Adapt 'Murder Before Evensong'

Even if you knew nothing about streaming or ratings, it would be evident that Acorn TV is AMC Network's only genuinely successful streaming service out of all its little niche offerings, even more than the "flagship" service AMC+. Even if you didn't know Acorn TV has more subscribers by order of magnitude (in the millions instead of the hundreds of thousands), the sheer wealth of series AMC Networks is greenlighting for Acorn TV outpaces everything else (yes, again, even AMC+). Between the debut of Inspector Ellis, the return of Hidden Assets, Harry Wild, The Madame Blanc Mysteries, Recipes for Love & Murder, and the greenlighting of new shows Art Detectives and Irish Blood, the service has seven series currently in production, compared to AMC+'s six, or Sundance Now's three. Make that eight, as Acorn TV and Channel 5 have joined forces to adapt Murder Before Evensong, the first book in the Canon Clement Mysteries.

Don't feel bad if you haven't heard of the Canon Clement Mysteries. The series is relatively recent; Murder Before Evensong was published in mid-2022, with A Death in the Parish and Murder at the Monastery following in 2023 and 2024. All three are penned by Reverend Richard Coles, one of a small subset of U.K. "celebrity vicars." Initially a pop musician in the 1980s with The Communards, he started studying theology in the 1990s and has since become a regular fixture on radio, celebrity panel series like QI, and competition shows like Strictly Come Dancing, using his fame to preach the gospel.

The turn to writing cozy crime mysteries is post-pandemic, but Coles hit success right out of the gate; all three novels have become Sunday Times bestsellers. It's not surprising that Channel 5 jumped on the chance to adapt it, thought that it landed an American distributor so fast suggests people see the potential for this to become a modern-day version of Father Brown.

The simplistic logline released by Channel 5 reads: “Murder Before Evensong introduces Canon Daniel Clement, a rector of Champton who becomes embroiled in a murder case when a cousin to the church’s patron is found stabbed in the neck with a pair of secateurs.” Here’s the novel’s synopsis to supplement:

Canon Daniel Clement is the Rector of Champton. He has been there for eight years, living at the Rectory alongside his widowed mother–opinionated, fearless, ever-so-slightly annoying Audrey–and his two dachshunds, Cosmo and Hilda. When Daniel announces a plan to install a lavatory in church, the parish is suddenly (and unexpectedly) divided: as lines are drawn, long-buried secrets come dangerously close to destroying the apparent calm of the village. And then Anthony Bowness–cousin to Bernard de Floures, patron of Champton–is found dead at the back of the church, stabbed in the neck with a pair of pruning shears. 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.

No cast has been set thus far in the process, not even a lead actor to play Clement. Writer Nick Hicks-Beach (Midsomer Murders) is listed to pen the adaptation and as an executive producer alongside Coles and Lighthouse co-founder Radford Neville. (Lighthouse most recently was the producing team behind Netflix’s Scoop.)

Acorn TV and Channel 5 have not responded to requests for comment or disclosed a planned filming window, but Murder Before Evensong is expected to arrive in late 2025 or early 2026.