An ace drama about faith, with a whodunit attached?
Decades ago, there was a misbegotten campaign to promote the V&A as “an ace caff with quite a nice museum attached”. Is (ITV, Sunday) being similarly mis-sold? Once upon a time, these adaptations of James Runcie’s novels made for cosy crime drama in a dog collar. Not any more, padre.
In the latest instalment, there wasn’t even a murder to solve. A young single mother was found on the cusp of death, apparently having fallen from a window. Swift sleuthing established that her boyfriend had deposited her to cover up a motorbike accident, assisted by his father, who just happened to be in the same Masonic lodge as the superintendent. Mystery solved. No charge. Say no more.
Meanwhile in the foreground, Grantchester is morphing into an affecting and considerate examination of conscience, faith and doubt. This should be no surprise given that the author’s father was Archbishop of Canterbury. Perhaps they are running out of killers in Fifties Cambridgeshire.
I confess I gave Grantchester a wide berth after the first series. James Norton’s vaguely morose vicar Sydney Chambers felt strapped onto a one-trick pony. But in this episode, everyone else’s agonies bubbled simultaneously to the surface in a delicately woven narrative about the high price of love and desire.
Geordie (Robson Green) has been having a shabby workplace affair, which spilt shamingly into the open. Hatchet-faced housekeeper Mrs Maguire (Tessa Peake-jones) was visited by her long-lost husband (Charlie Higson), a crafty chancer bent on deception. And poor conflicted Leonard (Al Weaver), whose fiancée was eager to shed her virginity, confronted the hopelessness of pretending to be game (“It’s disgusting!” he blurted).
And then came the latest instalment of Sydney’s Anglican angst. Having consummated his on-off romance with comely Amanda (Morven Christie) – at flipping last – he predictably plunged into ever deeper wretchedness. “You need to pray to God,” advised the stern new archdeacon (Gary Beadle). “I have. He didn’t answer.” With that, off came the dog collar.
It’s possible the show’s predominantly godless fans didn’t sign up for quite this much wailing and gnashing of teeth. It’s snuck in by stealth, and if there aren’t at least three bodies next, Grantchester should be seen as an ace drama about faith with quite a nice murder mystery attached.
How many are watching Mexico: Earth’s Festival of Life (BBC Two, Sunday)? It’s not narrated by David Attenborough or presented by a roving Michael Palin. All it’s got to recommend it is flabbergasting photography, enthralling stories and a deep curiosity about man’s place in the natural world.
The idea is not simply to watch the wildlife do its photogenic thing, or to tell anthropological stories about the indigenous people, but seamlessly to enfold both into the drama that is the Mexican land mass.
Last week’s opener visited the mountains. Next week we’re in the northern desert, where Señor Trump aspires to build a wall. The second film visited the Forest of the Maya on the four-square peninsula of Yucatán that juts into the Gulf of Mexico.
The human star was Don Roque, an ageing farmer who lives deep in the forest and relies on the rains to irrigate his crops. These, alas, bring vast quantities of bugs. Happily, three million bats live in a nearby cave, and emerge each night to consume their own weight in insects.
Don Roque can farm here for the same reason the Mayans built temples. The forest’s 50,000 square miles contain no visible rivers. In fact they flow through the planet’s largest aquatic cave system. Mostly unmapped, they are accessible via huge natural wells, collapsed limestone caves created by the impact of the same meteor which, it’s thought, wiped out the dinosaurs. Don Roque shimmies 30 metres down a tree root to grow coffee in the cool, humid bowels of his local watering hole.
What an astonishing place. The animals made their picturesque exits and entrances – crocs, spider monkeys, howler monkeys, manatees, Caribbean flamingoes. Most eyecatching of all was the turquoisebrowed motmot, which has a splendid plumage but, even better, a deep sonorous call which alerted the Mayans to the proximity of the water holes.
Talking of sonorous, the narrator is Eliud Gabriel Porras, a World Service presenter whose languid voice is integral to this treasure-house of treats and surprises. The director-producer is Evania Wright, who should expect some sort of Mexican order of merit.
Grantchester ★★★★ Mexico: Earth’s Festival of Life ★★★★ there’s a dynamism that ensures this feels vital rather than like dusty history – after all, the