From left to right: Sidney Chambers, Geordie Keating, Will Davenport
Grantchester is an ITV mystery program that first broadcast in 2014 based on The Grantchester Mysteries stories written by James Runcie. It also airs on PBS in the US.
Sidney Chambers (James Norton) is an Anglican priest in 1950s Britain who, not entirely satisfied with the life of a clergyman, takes up an interest solving mysteries. He teams up with Inspector "Geordie" Keating (Robson Green), who reluctantly accepts Sidney's help at first. The two quickly bond, however, and are soon best of friends. As the series progresses, it begins exploring the characters' complicated personal lives and tracks Sidney's increasing disillusionment with life in the clergy.
Sidney departs in Series 4, having found new purpose in the American Civil Rights Movement. He's replaced by Will Davenport (Tom Brittney), a former inner-city chaplain who's taking up his first post as a parish priest. Will is much more enthusiastic about his calling as a clergyman but, despite his protestations, finds himself drawn into Geordie's criminal investigations.
Prior to the airing of Season 8 it was announced that this would be Tom Brittney's penultimate season, with Will due to be replaced by Alphy Kotteram (Rishi Nair) in Season 9.
This program provides examples of:
- Accidental Murder: The Victim of the Week in episode 2 of Series 6 died when, feeling intimidated by the presence of her biological daughter, whom she claims to not recognize, she backed into the stairs and fell backwards so hard she cracked her skull.
- The Alcoholic: Sidney and Geordie both joke about being alcoholics, but it’s clear that Sidney, at least, drinks too much even for the time period.Sidney: "Are we alcoholics, Geordie?"
Geordie: "Probably." - Ambiguously Bi: Leonard has been shown in situations where he could be romantically linked to both men and women.
- Anger Born of Worry: Mrs. Maguire can only berate Sidney after he rushes into a burning house to save a woman.Mrs. Maguire: "You stupid man! You stupid, stupid man"
- Likewise in Series 6 when she calls Leonard a "stupid boy" for getting caught with his boyfriend Daniel and getting into trouble with the police.
- Armoured Closet Gay/Bury Your Gays:
- One mystery revolves around how homosexuals had to keep their desires secret because homosexuality (classified as Gross Indecency) was a crime in 1950s Britain. Leonard also struggles with having to keep his sexuality a secret, although Sidney and Geordie are implicitly supportive and Will is more outspoken in his acceptance. Leonard's sexuality becomes a plot point in Series 6.
- In explaining why she's so accepting of Leonard, Cathy explains she used to have two aunts who lived together and didn't realize until much later the true nature of the arrangement and found she saw nothing morally wrong with it once she understood.
- Asshole Victim: The penultimate murder victim of the second series was abusive towards his wife and children before the wife got her revenge, tainting his beer with rat poison and leaving him to die in prison.
- Behind the Black: In the pilot episode, the murderer tries to push a woman onto train tracks, but Sidney jumps in from the side to save her just before she falls. To grab her in time, he must have been practically standing next to her, yet somehow remained unnoticed by either the murderer or her intended victim (both of whom would have recognized him).
- Berserk Button:
- Sidney goes absolutely apeshit on Geordie after the latter makes fun of his neverending support for the recently-executed Gary Bell in the most callous way possible: comparing Gary's manslaughter of Abigail Redmond to Sidney having killed during the war. Naturally, this pushes the previously patient Sidney past his limit.
- Will's is Domestic Abuse, because of his father's cruelty to his mother.
- Beware the Nice Ones: A lot of more stereotypical macho men tend to dismiss Sidney and Will's masculinity due to their being priests and working in a gentle profession. However, Sidney is a combat veteran with deep-seated trauma while Will is a former boxer with seething anger issues and both are quite happy, when given a reason, to punch someone.
- Big Fancy House: Will Davenport's family live in one. Will hates the privilege it implies and the strain its upkeep has placed on his mother. When he inherits it at the end of Series 4, he immediately proposes to sell it.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The new Archdeacon of Series 3. Unlike the first Archdeacon, this one seems genuinely kind and always opens his meetings by giving Sidney and Leonard well-deserved praise for their accomplishments. Right up until he uses that same tone of voice to pick apart any aspect of their personal lives that he finds unbecoming in the church.
- Black Cap of Death: The judge presiding over Gary Bell's murder trial puts it on at the trial's conclusion.
- Book Ends: The first and last episode of the first series both include a scene where a prostitute annoyed at Geordie tells him to "bugger [himself] sideways". Needless to say, she's friendlier towards Sidney.
- The Boxing Episode: In episode #5.5, after a boxing match between Lucas and Matt, the door is locked. Vic and Will break in and find them both unconscious. It looks like a double suicide, but Vic knows more than he is letting on.
- Broken Pedestal:
- Over the course of the second series, Sidney's faith in the Archdeacon is shattered as he learns of his role in Sam's sexual improprieties.
- In series 5, Will's trust in a friend, Vic, who helps wayward young men find their way through boxing, is destroyed when two of them attempt suicide, with one of them succeeding, and he finds out from the survivor that they did it to escape Vic's molestations.
- Busman's Holiday:
- Sidney takes Geordie to London for a night of jazz and drinking. They end up helping investigate the murder of Sidney’s sister’s boyfriend’s sister.
- Everybody goes off for a week at a holiday camp. Inevitably there's a murder, and despite Geordie insisting he's not going to get involved, it's not long before he's pulling rank on the junior officer assigned to the case and taking over.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Will reads the bishop the Riot Act over his perceived lack of concern about Leonard's imprisonment.
- Cannot Tell a Lie: Leonard is honest to a fault and awful at lying. However, this makes him perfect for breaking uncomfortable news, because he compensates by knowing how to soften the blow without hiding anything.
- Celibate Hero: Will, although not a virgin before he became a priest, is now abstaining until marriage. Geordie delights in needling him to see how close he'll draw the line with a partner. This finally ends at the end of Season 5, when he sleeps with an ex-nun at the center of the case of the week who convinces him there's nothing wrong with being sexually active.
- The Chew Toy: Poor Sidney often finds himself on the receiving end of people's anger and grief, particularly in Season Two.
- Christianity is Catholic: Sidney occasionally has to remind Geordie that he's not Catholic.
- Commonality Connection: Mrs. Maguire softens her stance on Hildegard when the two women bond over having lost loved ones during World War Two.
- Contrasting Replacement Character: Will Davenport is younger and doesn't struggle with his faith as much as Sidney did (at least until series 8 when he accidentally kills a man in a motorbike accident). Will also prefers to listen to rock while Sidney was a jazz aficionado.
- A minor case with the police secretaries - Margaret (series 2 and 3), who has onscreen love affairs with Sidney and Geordie, who is also married is replaced in series 6 with Jennifer, who seems to keep a personal distance from the leads.
- Curse of The Ancients: Mrs. Maguire often exclaims "What the Dickens?!?!" whenever she's angry or surprised (which leads to the dog being named Dickens). Sidney and Amanda find this amusingly quaint, even for the 1950s setting of the show.
- Damned by Faint Praise: In the third mystery of the second series, Leonard says of a film he'd just seen, "It was riveting enough." His friend is quick to lampshade.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Will makes passing references towards a youth filled with debauchery, occasionally egged on by his abusive father. In fact, he had an affair with an older, married woman when he was a teen, and she got pregnant and aborted it.
- A Day in the Limelight: Both in and out of universe for Leonard in episode 4.3, which follows on from Sidney's departure and has Leonard temporarily filling in both as parish priest and as Geordie's crimefighting sidekick. It turns out that he's not really up to either role.
- Deadpan Snarker: Geordie gets the lion’s share of the scripts’ zingers and the fact that he’s so casual about them makes them sting all the more.
- Sidney has his moments as well. For example, in the fourth mystery of the second series, Sidney sarcastically says yes to Geordie's question about whether Jesus became a ghost upon his resurrection on Easter Sunday and follows it up with an equally sarcastic remark.
Sidney: Thank goodness for ghosts and the death penalty, or I wouldn't have a job. - Defiant Strip: In episode #8.3, a group of female students protesting the treatment of women in art and academia strip down to their underwear during a garden party at a college. One of them then strips off completely while making an impassioned speech and is arrested by Geordie. She refuses to get dressed even at the police station, leading to several awkward moments.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Mrs. Maguire/Chapman has a very long character arc that shows her warming up to Sidney and Leonard and become a maternal figure in their lives.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Sidney and Will frequently come into conflict with other characters because their personal views are quite progressive for the 1950s, although still somewhat conservative for the present day audience of the books and TV series. Both are accepting of their curate Leonard being gay, and Will in particular advocates that the church should officially do away with homophobia and wants to preach to that effect.
- Despair Event Horizon: Sidney crosses it following Gary's execution. Thankfully, he gets better by the end of the second series finale.
- Downer Ending: Episode 5 of Series 6. Leonard is put away for half a year, and the perp of the week gets off on a technicality. In other words, the law triumphs over good.
- Drink-Based Characterization: Sidney likes whiskey and a pint and hates sherry, the alcoholic drink stereotypical associated with Vicars (with the sense that vicars aren't really associated with drinking at all). These preferences mark Sidney as unconventional for a vicar.
- Everybody Smokes: Par for the 1950s setting. Sidney and Geordie, especially, are rarely seen without a lit cigarette.
- Evil Lawyer Joke: Will gets one on Geordie in episode 2 of series 6: "Since when do you trust lawyers?"
- Fashions Never Change: Geordie is conspicuous among the non-clergy characters for wearing suits that are at least a decade out of date, with a former comrade joking that he's still wearing the suit he was demobbed in. He tries wearing a more up-to-date suit in one episode, but it gets torn in a fight and he goes back to his old threads immediately.
- First-Name Basis: Will always insists that people should address him by name rather than proper titles. This shocks many people in the community.
- Foil: Orson Wade III is this to Will Davenport. Whereas Will came to understand that as far as connections go his father was ultimately just a small fry in the grander scheme of things, Orson cravenly hides behind his father, a colonel in the U.S. Air Force, to try to get away with murder.
- Foreshadowing: "You are a member of the clergy. Others trust you, they look to you to set a good example." This is why the judge ordered Leonard locked up for gross indecency. Two episodes later, we see as part of the prison staff a member of the clergy whose crimes go beyond gross indecency and even include murder.
- Fourth-Date Marriage: Will struggles to articulate his attraction to reporter Ellie Harding and proposes marriage very quickly. Ellie shoots him down because she won't enter into a marriage just so she can help a man get over his hang ups.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Surprisingly, the Archdeacon ends up being this for the second series, being responsible for Sam's brief stint at the parish, during which he knocked up Abigail and got her pregnant, resulting directly in both her and Gary dying by asphyxiation—Abigail during an abortion gone wrong, and Gary at the gallows. Otherwise, he doesn't do anything to directly oppose Sidney until the series finale, where he tries to win Leonard over in an attempt to remove Sidney, who by that point is at his weakest.
- Hellhole Prison: The prison where Leonard is incarcerated is governed by a jingoistic homophobe, and one of the officers is an accessory to blackmail of the families of prisoners and freely admits to enjoying roughing up those prisoners whose families don't give in.
- Heroes Love Dogs: Sidney owns a black lab, a gift from Amanda, that he names Dickens after Mrs. Maguire's favorite exclamation.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Episode 3 of Series 6 ends with Leonard turning himself in for gross indecency to spare Will the trouble of covering for him all the time.
- Honor Before Reason: Why Leonard pleads guilty to gross indecency in episode 5 of Series 6 so that Will won't have to compromise himself by lying to give Leonard an alibi.
- Hope Spot: Just when it looks like Will's testimony will allow Leonard to get off with a fine, the judge names his profession as an aggravating factor.
- I'll Kill You!: The result of Sam Milburn crossing paths with Harding Redmond in the second series finale.
- Implied Death Threat: During Gary's appeal, a noose is found just outside of the vicarage. Sidney immediately blames Harding and demands he tell him straight what he thinks instead of going out of his way to threaten him.
- Impoverished Patrician: The Davenports are broke but try to keep up appearances by maintaining a few rooms in their huge house while the rest fall into disrepair. Will's mother has resorted to pawning her belongings to try and pay the household staff.
- Inspector Javert: Geordie is this regarding all things Gary Bell thanks to the influence of the Jerkass Ball, from having him virtually waterboarded near the end of the second series premiere to providing the crucial (and biased, as Geordie is convinced Gary killed Abigail on purpose, which the audience knows isn't true) testimony that all but guarantees Gary a one-way trip to the gallows.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Mrs Maguire's ex-husband Ronnie is ultimately revealed to be this. While he did steal his ex-wife's savings, he was doing it to save his other wife. However, it's acknowledged that his actions were pretty scummy.
- Mercy Kill: A recent spate of deaths in Grantchester is due to a local doctor ending the lives of the old and infirm at their request.
- Sidney reveals he had to do this to a fatally injured young soldier under his command during World War 2.
- Mistaken for Cheating: In season 4, when Geordie sees Cathy's supervisor at the department store Mr Hobbs flirting with her, he assumes she's cheating on him. She's not; Hobbs is a lech who harasses all the female staff. Eventually Cathy teams up with Mrs Chapman in a plot to get him sacked (although she doesn't usually make a display of it, Mrs Chapman's new husband is rather wealthy, and she tells the store owner that she'll be doing a lot of shopping there but only if Hobbs is let go).
- Moe Greene Special: One victim of the week in season 4 got this via a stoning.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: Attempted in the second episode of the third series. Or so we're led to think. In reality it's an in-universe case of Die for Our Ship orchestrated by a too-enthusiastic Shipper on Deck.
- Naïve Newcomer: Henry Jones, the new curate, very nearly gets Will fired through a rookie mistake involving family.
- Nice Guy: Sidney is a man who’ll try to make others happy even if doing so hurts him.
- No Name Given: Geordienote only goes by his nickname and his actual name is not heard at any time during the first series.
- Not Blood Siblings: Will's new stepsister Tamara in Series 6 teases him shamelessly and alternates between insisting on calling them brother and sister to annoy him and invoking this trope. Although he only returns her interest once when he's drunk.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Sidney getting in a physical altercation with Geordie and falling into a life of vice shows how much of a number Gary's execution did on him.
- Penny Among Diamonds: Sidney and Jennifer, his sister, grew up around, and are still friends with, extravagantly wealthy people but they don’t come from wealth themselves. Jennifer, at least, grew up wearing handmade clothes and is still teased for it by one particularly mean classmate.
- The Place: Grantchester is a village in Cambridgeshire.
- Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: Between Sidney and Geordie at the end of the fifth mystery of the second series, in a demonstration of how poisonous their opposing views on the death penalty ended up being, the final straw being Gary's execution.
- Politically Correct History: Averted for the most part, as the series doesn't shy away from addressing 1950s racism, misogyny and especially homophobia. Possibly played straight, however, in the case of Jennifer, the new police secretary in series 6. Her actress, Melissa Johns, was born without a right forearm, and yet not a single character (even those presented as unlikeable) makes a comment about her disability. If anything, her gender seems to cause more issues for her.note
- Pretty in Mink: When Sydney and Amanda finally have a date, Amanda puts on one of her best dresses and a white fur wrap.
- Put on a Bus: Sidney departs in series 4 to join the American Civil Rights movement alongside new flame Violet.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: When Leonard confronts the Archbishop in the second series finale and rakes him over the coals for all the damage his sheltering of Sam Milburn did.
- Running Gag:
- People assuming Sidney likes sherry because it's considered a priest's drink. He thinks it's too bitter.
- People assuming Sidney is a virgin. He's not.
- Samus Is a Girl: In episode #8.1, Geordie arrests a mysterious biker known only as 'Lighting', only to discover that when 'lightning' removes their their helmet and their long hair tumbles free that 'Lightning' is a girl.
- Satellite Love Interest: Bonnie mainly exists to be Will's love interest and wife as of the end of series 7 and has very few scenes without him. It doesn't help that for most of series 8 she's Commuting on a Bus, presumably as a case of Real Life Writes the Plot.
- Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Effeminate Extreme Doormat Leonard, and hard-drinking smoker and amateur sleuth Sidney.
- Sexy Priest:
- Sidney.
- Will catches the eye of many young ladies when he moves to Grantchester. Some even send him flowers to show their interest.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran:
- Sidney. This surprises many people because they assume that he was a chaplain due to his current profession. He was actually an officer in the Scots Guard and suffers from survivor guilt and flashbacks.
- Series 6 sees Geordie forced to confront his time as a POW in Burma and the resurfacing of his long-buried trauma.
- Sinister Minister: The chaplain at the prison is a holier-than-thou homophobe and a murderer.
- Smokescreen Crime: In episode #8.3, the murderer, after killing the porter, cuts a priceless painting from its frame and takes it with them to make it look like the porter had been killed after interrupting a robbery.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Sidney and Amanda are in love but are forced to ignore their feelings because Amanda’s wealthy father would never approve of her marrying someone of such humble means. Amanda, instead, enters into an arranged engagement with the son of her father’s business partner and she and Sidney have to acknowledge that they'll only ever be friends. This situation changes towards the end of Series 2 when she gets divorced and the fall-out is covered in Series 3. Unfortunately, now Sidney would have to leave the clergy in order to marry a divorcée, and ultimately chooses not to.
- Stealth Pun/Visual Pun: In the first episode, Sidney sees a prostitute being booked at the police station and has a friendly conversation with her (and she also shows up in the last episode of the first series, and Sidney remembers her). It's quite likely that there is a reference here to a kind of stock British costume party called "Tarts and Vicars", but no one in the show references that (probably because the show's setting likely antedates this kind of party).
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: After Leonard is publicly outed, his friends try to rally around him, but he's arrested for gross indecency and imprisoned instead of given a slap on the wrist because the judge thinks being a homosexual member of the clergy is especially immoral.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Leonard gets time off for good behavior after having solved the murder of fellow pansy prisoner Elroy Hastings.
- Time-Passes Montage: The gap between Sidney's departure and Will's arrival is depicted through a montage of Leonard taking on parish duties by himself and becoming more confident in his abilities.
- Tone Shift: The Mystery of the Week becomes increasingly incidental as the the subplots concerning the main characters' private lives move into the foreground. By series 4, the show's previews often didn't even mention the mystery plots at all (though they were still present).
- Transparent Closet: Everyone spends the first series thinking Leonard is homosexual due to his sensitive nature and awkward manner in dealing with people. The scripts for the first two series liked to hint at tease at which way he would swing, liberally using Bait-and-Switch tactics. He eventually enters into a relationship with a local woman and proposes marriage. Unfortunately he can't keep up pretending to love her romantically, and attempts suicide after the engagement is broken.
- Uncle Pennybags: Jack Chapman is a well-off gentleman who urges Sylvia, his wife to treat herself. His money comes in handy when Sylvia and Cathy team up to get rid of a lecherous department store supervisor.
- The Unfair Sex: Grantchester has a recurring problem with this. When Amanda is going through a divorce with her husband, she demands to know why Sidney never rekindled their relationship if he loved her, even though she was married at the time, and she broke off her relationship with Sidney in the first place because of her engagement. Will doesn't get treated any better; he's depicted as being in the wrong for refusing Bonnie's request to have sex after he's just come out of an unhealthy relationship with Maya, an unrepentantly adulterous woman. Will and Bonnie agree to stay friends, and Will and Maya get back together after she leaves her fiancé, yet when Bonnie shows up the next morning and discovers them together, Will gets chewed out by Bonnie and Maya for "leading" Bonnie on when he did no such thing; Bonnie barged in and professed her love to Will unprompted (while also telling him that she hates him). Keep in mind that this is all taking place on a show where adulterous men are depicted as either monstrous or, like Geordie, in need of moral reform at the hands of upright women and their male sympathizers.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Geoff Towler in the second episode of Season 3. The victim's brother Munair rescues him from his wife's attempt to kill him, but because Geoff is a racist prick he can't thank him.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Sam Milburn's sex crimes ended up causing the deaths of both Abigail and Gary.
- The Vicar: Sidney, although he's less uptight than the typical example of this trope. He's followed by Will. Leonard occasionally steps into this role when neither are available and does a fairly good job despite his lack of confidence.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist:
- The murderer of the week in the penultimate episode of the second series is this, having poisoned her abusive husband's drink to protect her children.
- The archdeacon in Season 3 is as well; unlike the archdeacon in season 2 (who was basically a corrupt shithead) he truly believes in the church but is overly domineering about it.
- Season 4 has one in its fourth episode. The seemingly frail old Mennonite woman stoned the victim of the week and defenestrated her to protect young Adam from her.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Geordie gives Will one for not taking the time to visit Leonard in prison (due to feeling guilty for Leonard's imprisonment).
- Wife-Basher Basher: Domestic violence is Will's berserk button due to his father abusing his mother. When he learns that Geordie raised a hand toward Cathy, he hunts the man down fully intent on beating him to a pulp. He ultimately decides against it despite coming very close to throwing a punch.
- Woman Scorned: A central plot point to a few scripts.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: The prison chaplain pulls one on Leonard upon being found out.
- Wunza Plot: One's a priest, one's a copper. Together, they fight crime!
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Sidney and Geordie enjoy each other’s company as they exchange snide comments about each other.
- You Do Not Have to Say Anything: The police use the 1950s version of this when arresting people.DC Atkins: You're not obliged to say anything if you do not wish to do so, but what you do say may be put into writing.
