Virtual Murder

Virtual Murder
Kim Thomson as Samantha Valentine and Nicholas Clay as Dr. John Cornelius in Virtual Murder
Created by	Harry Robertson and Brian Degas
Starring	Nicholas Clay Kim Thomson Stephen Yardley Jude Akuwudike Alan David Carole Boyd
Theme music composer	Harry Robertson
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
No. of episodes	6
Production
Executive producer(s)	Barry Hanson
Producer(s)	Harry Robertson and Brian Degas
Running time	c. 50 minutes per episode
Release
Original network	BBC1
Original release	24 July – 28 August 1992

Virtual Murder was an unusual investigative drama series shown on BBC television in 1992. It starred Nicholas Clay as Dr John Cornelius, a psychology lecturer at a provincial university, and Kim Thomson as his vivacious, red-headed partner, Samantha Valentine.

Virtual Murder was in the mould of some earlier off-beat series, such as The Avengers and Adam Adamant Lives!, both shown in the 1960s. Like Steed and Emma Peel or Adam Adamant and Georgina Jones, Cornelius ("JC") and Valentine investigated a succession of rather eccentric or bizarre occurrences. They often did so in cooperation with the police, represented by Stephen Yardley as Inspector Cadogan and Jude Akuwudike as Sergeant Gummer. Complementing the occult elements and those of virtual reality, there was a thread of playful, sometimes dark humour running through the scripts and an underlying sexual frisson between Clay and Thomson.

Other regular characters were Professor Owen Griffiths (Alan David) and Phoebe Littlejohn (Carole Boyd, best known for her role as Lynda Snell in BBC radio’s The Archers).

The series was created and produced at the BBC’s Pebble Mill studios in Birmingham by Brian Degas, a scriptwriter for the film Barbarella (1968) and co-creator of the TV series Colditz (1972), and Harry Robertson, best known as a composer of film music (mostly under the name of Harry Robinson). The original title of the series was Nimrod but this was changed to Virtual Murder – this was the original title of the script for what was intended to be the first episode, later renamed "Dreams Imagic". As things transpired "Dreams Imagic" was, in fact, the last episode to be broadcast. Direction of the episodes was shared between Philip Draycott and Peter Rose with the episodes recorded between 12 August 1991 and 28 February 1992 on location in Birmingham, Milton Keynes, Kidderminster and Wolverhampton as well as at Studio A in Pebble Mill. All but "Dreams Imagic" had an array of guest stars.