The BBC has announced the return of its beloved detective series, Father Brown, with a 12th instalment set to air in January next year.
The daytime crime drama, which stars Mark Williams as the titular character, was first shown in 2013.
Based on the short stories by GK Chesterton about a crime-solving Catholic priest in the fictional Cotswolds village of Kembleford in the 1950s, the show pulls in 2.5 million viewers in the UK.
Series 11 began in January and with one episode airing each week on BBC One, fans will see the final instalment on Friday. It is available in full on iPlayer.
It picked up in 1955 where fans saw Chief Inspector Sullivan (Tom Chambers) and Mrs Devine (Claudie Blakley) had grown closer.
The BBC has announced the return of its beloved detective series, Father Brown, with a 12th instalment set to air next year
The daytime crime drama, which stars Mark Williams as the titular character, was first shown in 2013 (Mark and Lorna Watson as Sister Boniface pictured)
And it hadn’t escaped the notice of Father Brown (Mark Williams) and Brenda (Ruby-May Martinwood).
The cast features Sylvester McCoy and Ingrid Oliver of Doctor Who fame and Game Of Throne’s Ian Gelder.
In 2020, Mark revealed he had become an unlikely pin-up after a fan cheekily pinched his bottom when asking for a selfie.
During a second incident, an American lady bowled over to him during filming and said, ‘Father Brown, I feel like I know you.’
When asked for The Daily Mail’s Weekend if he felt like a sex symbol he laughed: ‘No, I don’t. I’ve never been employed for my attractiveness.’
‘I don’t know about Father Brown, but a friend of mine said that when she was a child in Ireland there was always a bit of a “What’s under the cassock?” romance about the young seminarians.
‘But I think I’m a bit too old for that, in fact a lot too old for that.’
The adulation is hardly surprising since the universal appeal of the acclaimed series has made it one of the most successful daytime shows ever.
Based on the short stories by GK Chesterton about a crime-solving Catholic priest in the fictional Cotswolds village of Kembleford in the 1950s, the show pulls in 2.5 million viewers
As well as the UK it has also been viewed by audiences in US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Hungary, Poland, South Korea and Japan.
Set in the stunning Cotswolds countryside, Father Brown offers gloriously nostalgic episodes full of drama, warmth and humour.
But the real pull of the stories is their moral compass.
Chesterton created the character more than 100 years ago as an antidote to Sherlock Holmes – while Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective relies on scientific reasoning untouched by emotion, Father Brown solves crimes with his charisma and a deep understanding of human failings.
