John Nettles talks to Susan Griffin about bowing out from Midsomer Murders after 15 years.

AFTER 15 years of playing DCI Tom Barnaby in ITV’s murder-strewn Midsomer Murders, John Nettles is preparing to say adieu next year. Relaxing in a village pub in Amersham, where much of the series is filmed, the actor, who previously put in a ten year detective stint as Bergerac, clearly has mixed feelings about leaving.

‘‘The auspicious eye is looking forward to doing other things, like stage, and the drooping eye is looking backwards to all those friends I’ll be leaving behind,’’ he says.

Nettles may be 66, but he’s always retained that air of schoolboy mischief about him.

You can’t be sure what he’s going to come out with. He reveals that his decision to leave was surprisingly easy.

‘‘I think characters have a life on television; a beginning, a middle and an end. Bergerac went on for ten years and I knew exactly when it had to end, and this one’s likewise – the character anyway.’’ The series will continue with the responsibility of policing the streets of Midsomer – body count currently 222 – passing to his cousin DCI John Barnaby, played by Neil Dudgeon.

Asked if he has any advice for his successor, he jokes: ‘‘Don’t raise the bar too far, otherwise you’ll make me look stupid. I’ve known Neil since he was kneehigh to a grasshopper and he’s a lovely actor. In fact, he accords more closely to the description of Barnaby in the books than me. Neil’s a dark, saturnine, heavyweight guy... I’m glamorous and charismatic.’’ A recent episode saw Barnaby and DS Ben Jones (Jason Hughes) release their Wild West spirit when a land feud erupted at an annual cowboy fair.

‘‘I put a gun belt on, but because I’m so thin it fell off as I was running down the street. I tripped over and fell face down in the dust. I thought that was pretty symbolic,’’ says Nettles who feels that his character is a pretty duff detective.

‘‘Barnaby’s the worst policeman in the world, he’s hopeless. He works mostly by intuition, the sudden shaft of insight putting together things which no other human on God’s earth would put together, to arrive at a conclusion.’’ Barnaby’s final farewell will be aired at the end of the series next year and Nettles halfseriously reveals that his idea of a ‘‘heroic’’ finale was turned down. ‘‘It was laughed out of court, it wasn’t even considered.

Barnaby’s not going to end with a bang of any kind, it’ll be more of a whimper. He’ll just fade away, as coppers usually do,’’ he says.

Asked about fans’ reaction to his departure, he cheekily replies: ‘‘Some have expressed mild regret. There’s one Australian lady in the outback who’s invited me to her farm to do strange things to me. Six sides of A4 paper, it makes my eyes water to even think of it.’’ Born in Cornwall, Nettles got the acting bug when he was a 24-year-old extra on the film A Man For All Seasons. ‘‘We were filming at Beaulieu and I snuck down to look at this scene by the water’s edge between Leo McKern and Johnny Hurt. I thought it was beautiful, the way they spoke, the way the characters were informed. You couldn’t see the difference between intention and performance, it was perfection.

And it was at that moment I decided to be an actor.’’ In 1971 came the period drama A Family At War followed by a decade of The Liver Birds, Enemy At The Door and Robin Of Sherwood. From 1981 he starred as BBC’s Jerseybased policeman Jim Bergerac and shot back into the limelight with Midsomer Murders from 1996.

‘‘When we started off, I looked at the books it was based on and I thought we’d just do the five of them. But all of a sudden, the great British public took us to its heart and we’ve been going on ever since,’’ he says.

He has no regrets about most of his fame coming on the small screen rather than being a man for all seasons in cinema. “I might have got the balance slightly wrong but you don’t have choices in this business.

You get pushed in all directions and end up in all kinds of places you didn’t expect to end up in when you started out. It’s sad in some ways.

‘‘Actors will go on as long as there’s an audience, and as long as there’s a possibility, I shan’t retire. What would I do? Look at my show reel? Read my one good review again? I’ve got to go on.’’ And true to form, a new TV series is being penned for Nettles and there are hopes it will start in the spring.

■ Midsomer Murders, Wednesday, ITV1, 8pm