Grantchester, series 8, review: whisper it, but the vicar's lost his vroom
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Grantchester (ITV1) is a global hit. I think this is because it makes the countryside look lovely, features a sexy vicar, and generally presents a bucolic picture of Britain that foreigners may imagine still exists, rather than a country of mobile-phone muggings and exasperated people trying to work self-service checkouts.
There are murders all over the place, and social issues are tackled, but in a nice, unthreatening way. It’s Call the Midwife on a motorbike. And it has a wide international appeal. Robson Green, who plays DCI Geordie Keating, told recently of visiting the Australian Outback to make his fishing show. “I was with what I’d call really stereotypical Australian blokes who run a cod hatchery, who told me that Grantchester is their favourite show. I had the same reaction in Alaska, when I was filming on a glacier and a bunch of Americans started going, ‘It’s Geordie!’”
As Reverend Will Davenport, Tom Brittney is the lead character. But Green is the beating heart of the show. As we begin series eight – which has jumped forward to the early 1960s – Geordie is facing forced retirement at the instigation of his “stuck-up, pen-pushing, halfwit” of a boss. I know Grantchester survived the departure of James Norton – and ITV has announced that Brittney will leave in series nine – but Grantchester without Robson Green would be a step too far.
Will is now expecting a baby with Bonnie (Charlotte Ritchie) and is generally being a good egg. The murder mystery in this episode involved a charity bike race, and one of its young riders ended up dead. It was perfunctory stuff but Grantchester is the opposite of, say, Silent Witness, in which the plot’s the thing. The crimes here are secondary to the characters.
As ever, the show brings diversity to its period setting – in last night’s episode, one of the bikers was black and deaf and a mysterious rider called Lightning turned out to be a woman, who disguised her identity because women weren’t allowed to compete – but it doesn’t bash you over the head with its politics. The main problem at the moment seems to be that the show has run out of steam and needs something to perk it up.
Now, spoilers coming up: at the end of the episode, Will had a collision with a man who stepped out in front of his bike. An event that sets him on a downward spiral for the rest of the season (I’ve read the series notes), in which he wrestles with guilt and self-loathing. It all sounds a bit gloomy. Let’s hope Geordie rides to the rescue.
