Murder Most Horrid - Television Tropes & Idioms

A British Black Comedy featuring Dawn French in many different roles. There were many episodes, each one with their own plots (Completely unconnected to each other) in which Dawn's character always featured prominently. Once an Episode there was usually a murder, sometimes more, very rarely none, with most of the humour being related to the plot, but occasionally some humour is drawn from Dawn's portrayal of her character.

This show provides examples of:

Always Murder: Subverted. "Mangez Merveillac" certainly features a murder, but a post-credits scene shows that this was just a story spun in order to sell film rights.
Asshole Victim
Celestial Bureaucracy: Described in an episode starring Dawn as The Grim Reaper who is unhappy with her new, less-grim makeover which sees her riding a pale mini and carrying a garden strimmer.
Catch Phrase
- "You know, Shakespeare really knew what he meant when he wrote that."
- Used in "Murder At Teatime" in the Show Within a Show "Write Away", constantly, as "right away". Write Away itself is a send-up of Blue Peter.
The Chanteuse: Dawn plays one in "Smashing Bird", a lounge singer who is also a gangster's girlfriend. She's not very good at the singing part.
Couch Gag: The second-to-last line of the theme song changes in every episode to a different lyric rhyming with "horrid."
The Ditz: Dawn likes these characters.
Doppelg�nger: The entire point of the episode "Mrs. Hat and Mrs. Red".
Exactly What It Says on the Tin: "Overkill" is a pretty good name for an episode that ends with 14 dead bodies.
Fake Nationality: Dawn French plays a Brazilian maid in "The Girl from Ipanema".
I'm a Humanitarian: In "Mangez Merveillac", Dawn's character Verity Hodge is killed and served in a stew to tourists. The Stinger shows that this isn't actually true.
- I Ate What?: One of the children finds some of her jewellery in their bowl.
Kick the Dog: Played for laughs, in "The Body Politic."
Money To Burn: Happens at the end of "Lady Luck", where Dawn uses a bank note to light a cigarette.
Obfuscating Stupidity: "We All Hate Granny", Granny appears to be The Ditz, constantly forgetting things, such as taking her pills which were poisoned or constantly sleeping and avoiding whatever Zany Scheme her relatives had thought up to off her. At the end she takes her grandchildren away, while leaving the gas on at the home. Meaning when her daughter-in-law, who was a smoker, takes a cigarette out after "celebrating" another failed attempt at killing Granny, the entire house blows up. It is also implied A. Granny killed every other one of her children, in similar circumstances and B. Granny killed Grandad, who abused her.
Once an Episode: A murder occurs. Occasionally averted.
Professional Killer: One barges in on Dawn's impending suicide in "Overkill".
Shout Out
- The opening titles show French turning around, like the bust of Edgar Wallace in The Edgar Wallace Mysteries.
- "Murder At Teatime" features the Show Within a Show "Write Away", which is a homage/parody of Blue Peter. It even has the garden vandalism scene.
Spoiled Brat: the grandchildren in "We All Hate Granny" come across this way at first, until Granny wins them over.
Sympathetic Murderer: Some of the murders are done for rather good reasons, to really horrible people. These murderers usually get off Scot-free, or someone horrid takes the fall for them.
The Killer in Me: In "The Case of the Missing", a policewoman is sent to investigate a murder done by a secret society, but is given ever more ludicrous excuses by her suspects (all part of the society and having much influence) that she eventually comes to the conclusion that she was the murderer.
Time Machine: One shows up in "A Determined Woman".
- Time Travel
Title Drop
- The episode "Mangez Merveillac" features Dawn as a writer who has come to a small French town to write a travelogue, and ends the book (which is also called "Mangez Merveillac") with those two words.
- "Murder At Teatime" has the fictional show "Write Away", and the title is used as a Catch Phrase by the presenter very often.
Twist Ending: Several. "Lady Luck" arguably has the most brilliant.
You Can't Fight Fate: In "A Determined Woman" French plays a scientist who kills her idiot husband in a moment of frustrated rage. After a short jail term she uses her time machine to go back and try to prevent her earlier actions, only to discover that her presence in the past was what caused her husband to apparently act more stupidly than usual.
Your Cheating Heart: The Howlings in "The Girl From Ipanema". The husband has his way with their foreign maids, while the wife with the maids' boyfriends.
Zany Scheme: How the murders occur. Also where a lot of the humour comes from.