The circus is coming to town and DCI Barnaby is taking his family despite his fear of clowns. Inevitably this family day out turns into a murder mystery. In this case because one of the two clowns shoots the other during their act. It should be an open and shut case; he had a motive and he shot the man in front of an audience... the only problem is that he fired a blank and there is a very real bullet in the corpse. As the investigation gets going plenty of suspects and motives emerge; the circus owner's brother, whose rifle is missing; a local councillor, who also owns a rifle, a woman whose sister died in an accident many years before and a local abattoir worker who is clearly up to something. There is also a clown scaring people in the village who may or may not be connected to the murders.
I wouldn't say this was a bad episode but it was weaker than usual. Midsomer Murders has a reputation for creative murders but two of the three deaths in this episode are somewhat cliché with variations on the switched prop theme... thankfully the third and final death is more original. On the plus side there are plenty of suspects to keep the viewer guessing as well as assorted subplots not obviously related to the murders. The cast, which includes plenty of faces familiar to watchers of British television does a fine job with the material. Overall I'd say that even if this is a weaker episode it is still a fun enough way to pass a couple of hours.