AFFAIRS OF THE HEART
JAMES NORTON AND ROBSON GREEN HINT AT ROMANTIC TROUBLES FOR SIDNEY AND GEORDIE…
All we’ve ever wanted from Grantchester is for Sidney Chambers to be happy – and as the third series gets under way, he does seem to be. Amanda is now separated from her husband, and she and Sidney even manage to join Geordie and his wife for a night out. They look like two happy couples – but the reality, of course, is more complicated.
“Sidney and Amanda are, in a way, living like teenagers,” explains James Norton, who plays the conflicted curate. “They’re stealing kisses behind the church and sneaking out for jazz nights. It’s playful and fun. But they are resisting the impending decision: if Amanda gets divorced, she can’t marry Sidney, and she can’t have a relationship with Sidney unless he leaves the Church. It sets up this ‘duty versus love’ conflict.”
And if you were hoping that DI Geordie Keating’s marriage to Cathy would provide some stability, then we have bad news – the Keatings are in for tough times of their own as Geordie battles his attraction to another woman…
“Sidney and Geordie are both having this crisis of self,” sighs Robson Green, who plays the distracted detective. “On the face of it, everything is fine, however Geordie is going about a campaign of destroying everything that is precious to him, unbeknown to anyone else but Sidney.”
In the opening episode, Sidney and Geordie look into the death of a pillar of the community, who is found in a church, somehow having drowned. The pair soon realise that a killer is targeting local figures, and that Sidney himself may be in danger.
Happily, things are much lighter for the actors on set – particularly James and Robson, who have become good friends as well as co-stars. However, Robson tells us that there have been times when they’ve had a bit too much fun at work…
“It was one o’clock in the morning,” he recalls. “It was a huge wide shot and it was raining. We were filming an exhumation and I started doing my Tommy Cooper impression, so James starts laughing and Tim [Fywell, the director] is going, ‘Robson! Get off the set, I can see you laughing!’. He told the first assistant director to put my costume on and stand next to James because
I was a disruptive influence!”
IT SETS UP THIS DUTY VERSUS LOVE CONFLICT FOR HIM AND AMANDA” JAMES