Jason Hughes tells the real reason he left Midsomer Murders (2024)

By Nicole Lampert for the Daily Mail

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As the most dangerous place in Britain, the idyllic fictional county of Midsomer has witnessed hundreds of grisly murders. The show didn’t quite manage to kill actor Jason Hughes, but it came close.

The star who played DS Ben Jones for over six years on the ever-popular ITV whodunnit shocked the show’s millions of fans a year ago when he announced he was leaving.

At the time there were vague rumours about him wanting to try his luck in America and hoping to stretch his acting chops.

While they were certainly true, Jason reveals there was a more pressing reason for him giving up the job; the relentless commute he endured almost every day for ten months of the year was beginning to affect his health.

Jason Hughes tells the real reason he left Midsomer Murders (1)

Jason Hughes, Barnaby's sidekick DS Jones, shocked everyone when he announced he was leaving the show last year. Here he tells the real reason why...

‘I was completely burned out from getting up at 4.30am in Brighton to get the train to London and then on to wherever we were filming in Buckinghamshire, and then doing the journey back and getting home at 9pm,’ he reveals. ‘It was starting to affect my health and I was so tired I was no good to anybody, either at home or at work.

‘That would go on for ten months, and when I had a break I’d get colds that went on for weeks. Then just as I was getting better I’d have to start the cycle all over again. My doctor told me I was suffering from exhaustion and the only answer was rest.’

Jason first contemplated leaving when his friend John Nettles, who played DCI Tom Barnaby for 14 years, quit in 2011.

‘I knew he was getting tired,’ he says. ‘One or two seasons before he left I could see he was on his last legs. At first I thought I should leave too, but when I found out Neil Dudgeon was replacing him and I knew he was a lovely guy, I thought I should stay and help with the transition to help give the show continuity. Then it was time to finish; they didn’t need me any more.’ He will be replaced by Gwilym Lee in the new series, which begins with a Christmas Special next month.

Astoundingly for such a well-loved show – its ratings have never dropped below 6 million, even when John Nettles quit – Jason suggests it didn’t look after him terribly well.

Until his final year on the show, he claims, not only did they refuse to pay for a car to pick him up from the station, but they wouldn’t even pay for him to stay overnight on the odd evening. ‘I was broke when I started so I couldn’t really afford to stay overnight,’ he shrugs. ‘The nearest hotels were £80 a night so if I started to pay for more overnights then I wasn’t really earning enough money.

‘Ironically, in my last year we had a new producer and, bless her, she arranged for a car to pick me up. I was also earning more than I had done. I finally had what I wanted, but I was so exhausted I had to stop.’

Jason Hughes tells the real reason he left Midsomer Murders (2)

Astoundingly for such a well-loved show - its ratings have never dropped below 6 million, even when John Nettles quit - Jason suggests it didn't look after him terribly well

So it’s a rather rested Jason, 42, I meet today in London, where he’s starring in new play In The Next Room at the St James Theatre. The rest has obviously done him good; he looks much fresher-faced and several years younger than he did on Midsomer Murders. Many actors worry after giving up the cosiness of steady work on a popular show but Jason is wide-eyed with enthusiasm.

‘No, I don’t miss it,’ he grins. ‘I’m excited. You can’t carry on doing something that’s taking so much out of you.’

When he finished filming in September last year he took a month off – there was a lot of sleeping – and then went to America and found himself an agent. He also caught up with his LA-based friends – fellow Welshmen Michael Sheen and Matthew Rhys, both big stars on both sides of the Atlantic now.

Jason, who was born in Porthcawl and was a promising rugby and cricket player before deciding to concentrate on acting, met them on the drama school circuit in London (he went to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art). They shared a house and plenty of adventures, and have remained the closest of friends.

‘After Midsomer I wanted to do something completely different so that’s why I went to America. I went for five weeks before Christmas and got some management there. When I went back after Christmas it was for “pilot season”, which is when all the networks are casting for pilots for new shows. I don’t know what happened this year but pilot season somehow got delayed so the whole time I was there nothing was happening.

'Then I came home and all these auditions started coming in; I had to do them over the internet. I’m not sure what’s going to come of it but I’m glad I went. At least I had a great time with my mates!’

Jason himself is as unstarry as they come. His life, he tells me, is all about his family. He’s been with jewellery designer Natasha Dahlberg for 18 years and married to her for seven, while he clearly adores his children Molly, 14, Max, eight, and Carys, who’s nearly three.

‘Being with them is what I like doing most of all,’ he says. ‘I’m a dad first and foremost; I’m not interested in being someone off the TV.’ He’s agog when I tell him about the number of fan clubs he has on the internet – he’s never Googled himself. He comes over all bashful when I ask about fan letters and marriage proposals – ‘No, no one would be mad enough to want to marry me except for my wife.’

Jason Hughes tells the real reason he left Midsomer Murders (3)

Jason was born in Porthcawl and was a promising rugby and cricket player before deciding to concentrate on acting

His new play, which premiered in Bath last year, is the first time he’s appeared on stage for eight years. His role is that of a doctor in 19th-century America, just as electricity is becoming common, who experiments with a machine he claims can help cure women of ‘hysteria’, and the play explores how it changes the doctor, his wife and several of his patients.

‘It’s beautifully written and the subject matter is fascinating,’ he says. ‘There’s a line where one of the characters says, “Imagine what it must be like to have light by pressing a switch rather than walking around with candles,” and it makes me appreciate how easy things are now.’

Jason will return home to Brighton every night, even though he won’t get back until midnight. ‘We start a lot later in the day though, and the journey’s nothing like as relentless as it was on Midsomer. I’m almost enjoying it. And if it all goes quiet here when I finish, I might go back to America.’


In The Next Room is at London’s St James Theatre until 4 January. For more information and tickets call 0844 264 2140 or visit www.inthe nextroomplay.com.

Jason Hughes tells the real reason he left Midsomer Murders (2024)
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