Robson Green Talks ‘Grantchester’s Longevity & Why He’s Not Going Anywhere

Throughout its first nine seasons, Grantchester has had three vicars and dozens of murders — but only one Robson Green. The veteran actor, who was cast in the eleventh hour to play one of the show’s two leads, Detective Inspector Geordie Keating, has been wearing his character’s signature brown suit since 2014, and as Season 10 of the Masterpiece series kicks off on PBS on June 15, he has no plans to hang it up. “It’s lovely when you go back to the Grantchester family,” says an enthusiastic Green.

Now an executive producer on the show, Green was only available in the first place due to unfortunate circumstances. He had been shooting the thriller series Strike Back in Thailand in 2014 when production was shut down after cast member Sullivan Stapleton was seriously injured off set.

“I rang my agent and said, ‘Get me anything, I need the work.’ I was in a pretty sticky situation financially,” he recalls. “There was this script called Cucumber, written by Russell T. Davies, which was fantastic, and there was this thing called Grantchester.” Halfway through reading the first episode of the latter — written by Daisy Coulam, who adapted the series from James Runcie’s books — Green knew he had to do it, and rushed back to England because filming was due to start soon. “It was so lovely and charming,” he says, “and I saw myself as Geordie.”

The character has evolved as a detective and a human being since the show began, and this season Geordie and the English village’s newest vicar, Alphy Kottaram (Rishi Nair), have family to contend with when they’re not joining forces to solve murders — at locales ranging from a strip club to the police station in these eight episodes, set in 1962. Both men do their share of emoting as Alphy deals with a past he’s tried to keep secret and Geordie struggles to understand his 10-year-old son, David (Carter-Jae O’Neil), and be the kind of father the elder Keating didn’t have. “Past belief systems come to the surface, and that’s difficult for him to deal with,” Green previews.

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Meanwhile, Geordie’s wife, Cathy (Kacey Ainsworth, above, with Nair and Green), makes a bold professional move with help from vicarage housekeeper Mrs. Chapman (Tessa Peake-Jones), while Geordie’s colleagues, Larry (Bradley Hall) and Miss Scott (Melissa Johns), contend with their workplace romance. But it’s former curate Leonard (Al Weaver) who looks to be having the most trying year. With his partner, Daniel (Oliver Dimsdale), absent, Leonard struggles with familial demons from his past, to both comic and tragic effect. “I think Al is one of the finest actors I’ve ever worked with,” Green praises. “He’s amazing.”

As is Grantchester‘s longevity. Ten seasons in, it remains a passion project for the cast and creative team, which Green sees as pivotal to its success. “We all still care,” he says, “and it’s the only series I’ve ever been involved in where that commitment — that fire, that need for it to do well — has held strong for such a long period of time.”

Grantchester, Season 10 Premiere, Sunday, June 15, 9/8c, PBS (check local listings at pbs.org)

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