Grantchester

I have just finished viewing the sixth episode of Granchester and am pleased to see that the series is being continued for another season. After viewing the sixth show, I detect a dramatic shift in the characters who have now become very close friends. The show has also matured into a somewhat dark, psychological drama where the pain and the character flaws of the two men are as much a part of the show as the murder mysteries they solve together.

At the start of the series, the police officer, Geordie Keating, played by Robson Green, was suspicious of the idealistic vicar, Sidney Chambers, played by James Norton, whose life was so different than his own. After a few months, Sidney wins Geordie's friendship by using his intuitive skills to help him solve the ongoing murders that plague the village. Geordie is a no nonsense police officer with a wife and four children who is made to appear almost as a "Columbo" figure (from the U.S. television show in the 1970's and 80's) with his worn-out raincoat and hunched figure. He is a drinker and a World War II veteran. Chambers also likes to imbibe, a bit too much, and has had a series of ill-fated affairs, going against the grain for an Anglican vicar. Chambers is well aware of his shortcomings but he has a huge heart which not only endears him to women but enables him to see the best in the people of his village.

Chambers also helps Geordie through a serious crisis in his family when one of his children becomes seriously ill and Geordie is unable to be with his family and share the pain that his wife Cathy is feeling; he has been trained in both war and peace to keep emotions in check. Chambers has a great heart but he is no fool and when there is a murder, he jumps right into the action, giving the overworked Geordie the benefit of his insights. We see a number of sub-plots in the series, with some comic relief from the vicar's housekeeper, Mrs. McGuire, who treats her boss like a wayward son, finding the empty whiskey bottles and watching his liaisons with the women in his life. Then there is Sidney's curate, who is unwise to the world and full of false dreams about his idyllic life as a country priest. His naive nature soon takes a beating under the patient and watchful eye of Sidney, who has much more experience to draw upon.

Sidney must also navigate around the impending marriage of his former lover who he stills sees socially from time to time. It is clear that the two still care deeply for one another. The show has some dramatic flashbacks for Sidney that haunt him long after the war. Geordie has also been through the ordeal of war and knows the moral ambiguities that Sidney faces. The personal sides of the two men have become more pronounced as the show moved through subsequent episodes. I am looking forward to seeing the next season.

Two extremely hot men (in my opinion), James Norton and Robson Green, star in "Grantchester," a series about a vicar (Norton) and the mysteries he solves with the help of a local police detective (Green).

Norton plays Sidney Chambers and Robson plays Geordie Keating. One of the better supporting roles belongs to Tessa Peake-Jones as Mrs. Maguire, Chambers' mouthy housekeeper.

Chambers is troubled by his war experiences and views his parishioners with great compassion and a sense of forgiveness. As he says, "I'm in a profession where people tell me everything," to which Keating replies, "That's funny, because I'm in a profession where people don't tell me anything." Chambers becomes somewhat of an amateur detective. After a rocky start, he and Keating become friends and bounce ideas off of one another. Keating likes that Chambers is more human than vicar-ish, not above a night on the town. Keating is married with a family; Chambers is pining for his love, Amanda Kendall (Morven Christie) who is marrying someone else.

The setting is a small British village, Grantchester, immediately post-war. It is beautifully photographed, has many light moments and many dramatic moments.

Norton does a great job as a contemplative man grappling with his own thoughts and feelings as he tries to help others. This for me is a different kind of role for Robson Green. There was a time, back in his Reckless days, when he was where Norton is now - young and hunky. Now he's older but just as sexy. In this series he gets to show his talent for humor as well as pathos, playing a tired, sometimes grouchy, jaded man balancing a family of a wife and small children and his caseload. Once he asked Chambers if someone was honest. "Well," Chambers says, "he wants to be an MP." Keating says, "I'll take that as a no." Really good series, entertaining with lots of eye candy. And I like Chambers' sermons.

I like Grantchester for the period costumes and the Cambridgeshire setting, the plots are rather tame but what I do dislike about it is that the attitudes that it portrays are so anachronistic. The scriptwriters are becoming more determined to add in 21st century attitudes and to be politically correct, and this is completely out of place for a drama set in the 1950s. I had a rolling eyes moment when Chambers and Keating greeted each other with a hug - for heaven's sake, British men didn't even do that in the 1980s, let alone the 1950s! A handshake would have been a sign of affection but a hug - absolutely not. I really can't see a vicar that I would have known in my youth (in the 1970s) let himself go to that extent, I'm thinking in particular or the 'simulated sex on the dance floor scene' - even non-clergy wouldn't have behaved like that in the 1950s. People just didn't behave like that in public.

Another reviewer felt that Grantchester was better than Jeremy Brett's Sherlock; I think absolutely not. I know my British history in great depth and that version of Sherlock had an authentic feel of Victorian Britain. Grantchester viewers could be left thinking that the 1950s were not much different to today, just different clothes, and that certainly isn't true.

I have not read the books. Therefore I enter as a virgin into the land of Grantchester. So, to me, it is a pleasant, light, somewhat funny, charming show. If we accept the idea that the Director meant to make the show in that way, I think that it is successful. I think the acting is excellent, and the stories are within reason, and interesting,but not hard-hitting because the show is not meant to be "film noir". It is light entertainment. I don't have to really believe that a Vicar, Sidney Chambers (James Norton),is regularly solving murders with his friend, Geordie, the police detective. I need not believe that a seemingly small town would have so many murders--one or more weekly--OK, let's say the time frame is two months apart, still.....you get it. So I give this show a 9 because I do enjoy it. I particularly like the acting of James Norton as the Vicar, but all are good.

Or that's how it appears. Do priests, Catholic or Anglican, seek refuge in the church as a shield from their own pain?

Sidney, a handsome ginger and Anglican priest, lives in the shadow of his past, so severely traumatized by a wartime incident that he seeks refuge not only in the church but from the bottom of a bottle and the burning embers of a cigarette. Neither option offers much.

In the end Sidney only wants to be loved and ventures outside the church with his friend Geordie, a detective, fighting crime and solving murders, which seemingly helps him find purpose.

The problem I have with these small-town detective stories is trying to figure out how so many murders can take place in such a single tiny geographical area.

A wonderful supporting cast from the love of his life, to the confused gay curate, the talented detective and the prudish zealot of a housekeeper.

In the states it's presented as a part of Masterpiece Theater. Check it out and you'll start to feel really good about yourself as a person.