Dicey partnership
Robson Green plays DI Geordie Keating in 50s drama series Grantchester. In season 3, both he and Rev Sidney Chambers face crises in their personal lives.
Why is Geordie’s marriage to Cathy (Kacey Ainsworth) under threat this season?
Geordie is paralysed with the burden of guilt and obligation and has an overwhelming sense of routine. He feels the relationship is stale and redundant, but he’s looking at the wrong aspects. He sets out to destroy everything that is precious in his private life and seeks approval from Sidney (James Norton). The overriding arc of the whole series is that both Sidney and Geordie have crises of self. They try to advise one another on how to deal with this, but both quickly realise they’re not qualified to give that advice. It’s love versus duty, loyalty versus love, which are very powerful emotions and issues to play. Sidney tries to give Geordie advice and Geordie says to Sidney, “How can you give me advice? You are going out with a married woman who has a child with another man and you’re standing there giving me advice?” Sidney points out that Geordie has a wife and four beautiful children. Geordie, in a way, seeks forgiveness throughout the whole series, but not from God.
One episode features Geordie and Sidney in a batting partnership during a village cricket match. What was that like to film?
The script only allowed me to score four runs, but it had a century written all over it. It was a quintessentially English scene; we’re all in our whites playing cricket. However, I play with a confidence that is wholly unwarranted. I was rubbish at school. The ball is too hard. The Grantchester cricket captain is played by Peter Davison, and I also managed to have a lot of scenes with Emma Davies, and she made me realise why I continue to do this job. It was just beautiful to be alongside her performance in episode two. Growing up with All Creatures Great and Small, he was a very important fixture in our family home in Dudley, so I was a huge fan. The experience and joy of working with someone like Peter really helps when you’re in front of the lens. He was a dream to work with.
Geordie is not a fan of jazz or the new sound of rock’n’roll. Is there an artist or band in real life you would travel a long way to see?
I used to be a huge fan of The Flying Pickets. I would travel from Newcastle to watch them play in Islington and follow them on tour. I was also a huge heavy metal fan and I’d travel the country to see Motorhead, Rainbow and bands like that. The last concert I went to in Newcastle, Dolly Parton, was probably the best I’ve been to just for spectacle, quality and coming away with a lifeaffirming sense of well-being. But now I sit and listen at home on the radio. I live in Northumberland and go walking in the hills.
You were still filming on your birthday last December. How did you celebrate?
We had a fireworks display. James did the food and I did the fireworks – they are one of my guilty pleasures. So I threw a fireworks display to music from movies. It started with Superman, then Flash Gordon, The Magnificent Seven, Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet.
It was wonderful. We had finished filming for the day and about 200 locals turned out in the village. We got permission to set a Category 5 display and everybody left with smiles on their faces.
The village of Grantchester looks lovely on screen, but are there times when it’s not pretty?
There was one night where we were doing an exhumation scene. It was raining and it was freezing and it was taking an eternity. Not only were we fed up and the production team fed up, but also members of the public were fed up. So much so that about half a mile away, a guy shouted out of his window, “Turn off your lighting and go home!” – with added bad language. We just fell about laughing and couldn’t continue. But other than that, our executive producer, Diederick Santer, calls Grantchester his happy place, and it’s true.
GRANTCHESTER Season 3, UKTV, Sky 007, 8.40pm, Wednesday. FURTHER TALES FROM NORTHUMBERLAND WITH ROBSON GREEN, TVNZ 1, 3.55pm, Sunday.