Blue Murder is an occasional English folk supergroup, consisting at various times of various members of Swan Arcade, Coope Boyes and Simpson, Waterson:Carthy and The Watersons.
Dave and Heather Brady and Jim Boyes of Swan Arcade and The Watersons' Norma and Lal Waterson gathered at Whitby Folk Week in August 1986 for a charity concert for the benefit of the local school. The ensemble, probably performing as The Boggle Hole Chorale, performed at the Festival's final ceilidh.
In 1987, Ian Anderson invited The Watersons and Swan Arcade to appear at Bracknell Festival, separately and together. The collective group was named "Blue Murder" by Martin Carthy. The line up for the festival was: Martin Carthy, with Norma, Lal, Rachel and Mike Waterson, plus Heather Brady, Dave Brady and Jim Boyes.
This version of Blue Murder performed in 1987 and 1988 at Wath upon Dearne in South Yorkshire, at The Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, at a variety of British festivals, and at the Brossella Festival in Brussels. A demo was put together from their Wath concert performance and a track from a concert in Bracknell appears on The Carthy Chronicles (Free Reed FRQCD-60), but this incarnation of the band made no studio recordings.
Blue Murder may refer to:
Blue Murder is a British crime drama television series based in Manchester, originally broadcast on ITV from 2003 until 2009, starring Caroline Quentin as DCI Janine Lewis and Ian Kelsey as DI Richard Mayne. Five series of the programme were broadcast over the course of six years.
Blue Murder was cancelled by the network in March 2010 due to falling ratings. Quentin herself said of the cancellation; "It's been axed, which is a big disappointment. The last series was the best we'd ever made. I thought it was fantastic. It took us a long time to get it right but we all felt we'd finally cracked it. It would have been nice to have the opportunity to finish the series. But I understand how it works. TV has got to move on. We did five or six years of it. That's a good innings and we had a good time. It's time for something different."
Blue Murder centres on a single mother of four, DCI Janine Lewis (Caroline Quentin), trying to balance a demanding career with raising her young family, whilst constantly battling with her ex-husband, who has since started a new family of his own.
An Australian play written by playwright, Beatrix Christian, which tells the story of Evelyn Carr. who leaves her home town to come to Blackrock to work for Blue, a children's writer. Acting as mentor, Blue leads Evelyn on a journey of self-discovery that is magical, sensuous and frightening (5 acts, 2 men, 4 women). Blue Murder is a complex study of the way men have created the fantasy that their art is more important than reality - even more real than death.
It has been published by Currency Press since 1994.
Blue Murder was first performed by Company B at the Belvoir Street Theatre, Sydney on 5 April 1994 with the following cast:
Lucy Bell: EVE
Kelly Butler: ANGEL
Rebecca Frith: LEURA
Sacha Horler: ROSE
Jamie Jackson: LYLE & ROY
Jacek Koman: BLUE
Directed by Antoinette Blaxland
Designed by Dan Potra
Lighting by Rory Dempster
Sound Design by Paul Healy