'Murder Before Evensong' Readies a September Sermon

Grantchester may be heading into its final season in 2026, but there's already a brand new Hot Vicar fresh from the oven for fans of British mysteries to enjoy. Acorn TV and Channel 5 announced in late 2024 that they would team up for a brand-new series, Murder Before Evensong. A period piece mystery set in the late 1980s, the series will star Matthew Lewis, who famously went from ugly duckling Neville Longbottom in Harry Potter's early films to the hottest of the Hogwarts graduates by a country mile by the time the franchise ended.

Based on The Canon Clement Mysteries, the best-selling novels by celebrity pastor* Reverend Richard Coles, the six-part series will adapt the first book from which the series draws its title. Lewis plays Canon Daniel Clement, the young vicar of an ancient church who finds himself embroiled in a murder committed right in his own house of worship. With the killer confirmed to be one of his congregants, the local detective decides that Clement will make a fine sidekick for his investigation, only for the two to become a crime-solving powerhouse duo.

(*Yes, the U.K. has celebrity vicars, who see their participation in cultural TV series and reality shows like Strictly Come Dancing as part and parcel of their ministry and making the Church of England accessible to all.)