ianlouisiana Review of Grantchester

Grantchester (2014–2025)

wriggle your toes and bring out the hot chocolate......

[8/10 · 8 October 2014]

...because "Grantchester" is ideal winter viewing on your favourite sofa.Beautifully photographed,nicely acted,with two sympathetic main characters who will no doubt grow on us as the series progresses. If you're looking for envelope - pushing stuff then you need to go elsewhere,but for reassuring English detective fiction,"Grantchester" fills the bill nicely. An attractive couple are swimming in Byron's Pool(he was an undergraduate at Trinity College where he allegedly kept a bear in his room).Afterwards they sit on the riverbank ,talking gaily.When they leave,the girl gets on a train back to London and the man rides his bicycle to Grantchester where he changes his clothes whilst listening to Sidney Bechet playing "Indian Summer" and it is apparent that he is a vicar about to conduct a funeral.The deceased is a suicide,and in the 1950s when the show is set,it was considered a sin to take one's own life and almost impossible to find a clergyman to officiate at such a service. Clearly,then,this is no ordinary vicar. After the ceremony a mysterious woman tells him that the deceased did not take his own life but was murdered. And so the first episode begins in a not unfamiliar fashion. It transpires that "Indian Summer" was very appropriate because his girl dumps him for someone richer,leaving him a Labrador puppy in her stead. He informs the police(in the shape of the excellent Mr Robson Green who eases up on his stroppy Geordie schtick a bit and is all the better for it).His suspicions are dismissed at first but gradually as he digs deeper a dastardly plot is revealed and justice prevails. There are a couple of period details that jar - England vs Hungary did result in a 6 - 3 defeat but was not played in the evening and "Wasting police time" was not created as an offence until at least thirty years later ,but otherwise the dialogue and mise - en - scene is pretty near perfect. "Grantchester" is written with love by James Runcie - a Cambridge man - and performed with affection by an excellent cast. Of course it could have been written any time in the last sixty years but in these troubled times that is not necessarily a bad thing. Lovers of nosey vicars and gruff but kindly coppers will love it.