Only eight British actors

Adventures in Brit mysteries, plus Links of the Week: Tom Hanks, Megan Thee Stallion, and the heyday of the Disco Kroger

“Hey, she was in that other thing!”

I’m not sure how this happened*, but our household has become devoted to British TV murder mysteries. We have subscriptions to both Acorn TV and Britbox, neither of which I knew existed until about a year ago. Sometimes life comes at you fast. Other times it comes slowly, with breathtaking scenery, and accents so thick you have to turn on the subtitles.

*Actually, I do know how this happened—I share the house with two women who have watched this stuff on PBS for years. While I was watching the Braves, they were watching Miss Marple.

Now that we have dozens of hours of these shows under our belts, our favorite game has become Where Have We Seen That Actor Before?

The other night we were watching the pilot of QUEENS OF MYSTERY, a show about a young detective and her three crime-writer aunts. One of the aunts, Cat Stone, was the woman in the photo above—the actress Julie Graham. We did not know her real name, but after a few minutes we did figure out that she was the lead detective’s boss in SHETLAND, a much darker show we watched last year.

Another character in QUEENS OF MYSTERY was played by Nancy Carroll, who we saw a couple of months ago as one of the leads in MURDER IN PROVENCE. My wife and mother-in-law also remembered her as a long-running character in FATHER BROWN.

And a third character in QUEENS OF MYSTERY was played by Selina Cadell—we’d seen her just a couple of nights before on a 25-year-old episode of MIDSOMER MURDERS.

This happens so often now that solving the mystery of where we saw them before is a much bigger deal than solving the murder on the screen.

It has led me to conclude that there are only eight British actors, and they all rotate from one show to another, possibly responding to some sort of Bat-signal in the shape of a bloody knife.

I’m sure, if we watch long enough, Michael Caine is going to show up somewhere.

10 things I wanted to share this week:

1. My earlier post this week was on my journey to Dogland, a/k/a the Westminster Dog Show. What would you like to know about my upcoming book? I’d love to hear your thoughts and questions.

2. My weekly for WFAE was about the Panthers’ pursuit of Deshaun Watson, and the value of unanswered prayers.

3. The hottest nightspot in 1980s Atlanta was the Limelight, and the next hottest was the grocery store next door—fondly named the Disco Kroger. This piece by Jay Busbee on the last days of the Disco Kroger brought back a lot of memories.

4. Very proud of my former Wake Forest student Mankaprr Conteh, who has the cover story in the new Rolling Stone on Megan Thee Stallion.

5. DOG NEWS: While I work on my book, I’m devoting this slot to dog stories. This week: How hanging out with dogs can reduce kids’ stress.

6. David Marchese, the king of the Q&A, interviews Tom Hanks.

7. I’ve never watched any of the shows produced by Robert and Michelle King—THE GOOD WIFE, THE GOOD FIGHT, EVIL, etc.—but this New Yorker story really made me want to dive in. They seem like an extremely ordinary middle-aged couple who just happen to make bold TV shows.

8. My wife and I watched UP in a theater somewhere in Virginia, in the middle of a thunderstorm, as we headed back to Charlotte after a year in Boston. All our emotions were turned up high … and after the first 10 minutes of the movie, we were puddles. Here’s an oral history of that sad and beautiful opening sequence.

9. I’ve been following a Twitter thread called the Black Music Month Challenge and learning about a bunch of great music along the way. Yesterday’s question was about the sexiest song you know. I was really intrigued by Bomani Jones’ pick, “Moments In Love” by The Art of Noise:

10. But my pick is Terence Trent D’Arby’s “Sign Your Name”:

See y’all next week, everybody.