Updated training in performing exaggerated slow hand-claps just after a detective has painstakingly revealed to the assembled cast how you committed your crime will become compulsory for drug dealers, mafia bosses and generally nasty pieces of work in all TV cop dramas, it has been confirmed.
The news comes after a study revealed the whilst the hand-clap is present in just over 50% of TV detective shows - and every single episode of Death in Paradise ever made - its' delivery is increasingly poor.
'The well-delivered ironic hand clap to show your obvious contempt for the elaborate, and frustratingly correct, theory of some smart-arsed DI, has always been one of the core weapons in a TV murderer's armoury, similar to Hamlet's soliloquy, or De Niro's 'You talkin' to me' speech in Taxi Driver, noted Martin Parker, senior Equity rep.
'However, in recent years, TV murderers are routinely failing to accompany their hand-claps with over-the-top nods of the head, holding out of their arms and asking to be cuffed, or accompanying sarcastic questioning, asking 'Why didn't I think of that myself?', and 'Of course, I'm sure you have the hard evidence to back this up?'.
'We'll be encouraging scriptwriters to give actors more chances to perfect their craft', continued Parker. 'I saw at least three episodes of the last series of Vera where the murderer poured his heart out to Brenda Blethyn after being rumbled, rather than engage in some ironic stand-off.
Precise details of training for actors are yet to be revealed, but rumours suggest it will involve watching copious reruns of Columbo, Moonlighting and Midsomer Murders.
When informed of this, Giles Palmer-Blaythwaite, the illegitimate son of a recently murdered aristocrat, set to inherit millions on the death of his father, said 'That's a very interesting theory of yours, detective. How frightfully kind of you to share it with us.'