Mikes Film Talk

Grantchester offers up more crime in Cambridgeshire in the UK. Unlike the other crime drama on PBS Masterpiece: Professor T, it is set in the 1950s and takes place just about 2 or 3 miles southwest of the city of colleges; Cambridge. It has managed to stay on for 8 seasons. I just watched the first ever episode and have come to the conclusion that this one’s a keeper.

Synopsis (for now)

Vicar Sidney Chambers, played by James Norton (Little Women, Mr Jones) and Robson Green, who plays DI Geordie Keating, become strange bedfellows in this series about murder “back in the day.” A suicide investigated by the police is deemed something else entirely by the vicar.

Chambers gets information that negates the police findings and he has to convince Keating that this was actually murder. The little village of Grantchester is about to be upturned

Quite clever

In this opening episode of Grantchester the plot and the introduction of the players is quite clever. Chambers is, in this instance, really the main instigator here. Keating is a reluctant participant. The odd couple pairing of these two was perfect for the concept of the show.

The DI is a jaded cop who distrusts the meddling vicar. The vicar himself is a WWII veteran who still has flashbacks. His actions in the war, that included killing an enemy soldier, obviously still bother him. These memories add more layers to an already interesting character.

His best friend, Amanda Hopkins (Morven Christie) chooses to marry another man. Chambers responds in a manner that could be described as perfunctory. His partner in deduction is a more earthy character. He is married man. Keating loves football and his family. By the end of the episode, he will be slightly different, just as the vicar grows, so does Keating.

The twist in the tale, so to speak, is that the vicar figures things out with minimal help from the copper. It is all done very well and as stated before, quite clever. This is not Agatha Christie but it is a very good depiction of 1950s English crime solving.

Nine seasons and a trailer

Grantchester is due to pick up again in June this year (2024) that will mean nine season’s worth of murder and mystery. Norton will play Chambers, the other side of the crime fighting coin through 2019. Robson is still putting his Keating in the forefront through this new season.

Check out the trailer of this PBS Masterpiece crime caper set in Cambridgeshire. This is a “gud un.” Stop by and see. The post WWII world is ripe and feels a tad like an old Agatha Christie cousin, sans a spinster and a Belgian intellectual.