Robson Green plays DI Geordie Keating
What was it like to slip into Geordie’s suit for the tenth time?
When Emma [Kingsman Lloyd, the executive producer] rang me up to ask if I wanted to do another series of Grantchester, I got just so excited. It means I get to join this extraordinary family and beautiful gallery of characters once again in the Grantchester meadows.
I get to wear that brown suit and plagiarise Peter Falk in Columbo again. So of course I say yes because filming the series gives me such a feeling of euphoria. We enjoy making the programme as much as you guys love watching it, and that’s a rarity in my career.
A lot of my actor peers look at this long-lasting series with envy and want to get onboard because they’ve heard what a joyous job it is. My mates go, ‘Come on, then, get me the gig. You’re my friend!’ And I’m also the executive producer of Grantchester, so it puts me in a bit of a pickle sometimes with actor friends.
What are your duties as an executive producer of Grantchester?
I make sure as an exec that I welcome every single person into the the family of Grantchester. I will know every department and every person on the crew list, and if I don’t know every actor I will make a point when that actor turns up for their first day on set to say hello and tell them that if they’ve got any problems or issues, to come to me.
Also, I get together with Emma and [creator and writer] Daisy Coulam in London to bash out storylines before each season, and while we’re filming I’m watching the dailies [unedited footage] every day. Then I’ll watch the edited footage and make notes and suggestions about doing a different cutting sequence, because luckily I’ll have been in a lot of the scenes and I know what the lines were and make suggestions about how to make it work better.
Being an actor as well as exec can be quite exhausting.
What can you tell us about series ten?
It’s all about the notion of family and what it means to us, and how you construct one when you’ve never had one. It’s a really interesting theme. There are a lot of secrets and lies in series ten, and one of them stems from a scene in the ninth series when Alphy first sits down in a pub with Geordie and Geordie says, ‘What’s your secret, Alphy?’ And Alphy says, ‘I don’t have one. I’m just a guy.’ But Geordie doesn’t believe him, and it all comes out this time.
Alphy goes in search of his identity. That idea came from me having conversations with people I’ve known for decades who suddenly, out of the blue, have told me a big secret about their upbringing. And I always think, ‘Wow, what does that do to you as a person?’
I won’t spoil it by saying more, but it’s a big development for Alphy that opens up a Pandora’s Box. And then Geordie meddles in Alphy’s affairs when he shouldn’t and that causes a row between them.
This series features storylines about cross-dressing, racism and divisive politics, for starters. Do you take pride in Grantchester covering contemporary and controversial topics in a series generally designed to be comforting TV?
People find comfort in Grantchester because the sun is always shining and it gives your mood a boost and makes you feel better about the world you live in. But all those things like racism, homophobia, sexual harassment and domestic abuse that exist now existed back then.
In this quintessentially English village you do have ignorance and views that need confronting as well as people who deal with whatever issues come their way as any forward-thinking and intelligent person would.
When you have writers like Daisy Coulam thrashing that out without bashing the audience over the head with the politics, it just works beautifully. We’ve always done that and I’m proud of it.
What was your favourite moment of filming the tenth series?
In every series, it’s always walking through Grantchester Meadows, because it fills me with so many gorgeous memories, from the first day I did with James Norton, with Tom Brittney, and now with Rishi Nair.
And here’s the thing – if the sun doesn’t shine when we’re doing scenes in the Meadows, we won’t film them. At the beginning we wondered if we could afford that approach, but decided that that would be our policy – if the weather is bad, we cancel any meadow scenes.
We even employ a weather person like in Formula One! For one episode in the final series – which we just finished filming – our weather person said, ‘It’ll rain every day but Thursday,’ and we had to film all the meadow scenes in one day.
Grantchester is popular all over the world. Did you have any unexpected fan encounters this series?
Three busloads of Americans turned up outside the church when we were filming series ten. It was nuts! There are companies that do bus tours of dramas like Call the Midwife, All Creatures Great and Small, Downton Abbey and Grantchester.
Our location is usually empty because we’re often filming in a studio or somewhere else in the Home Counties. So they definitely weren’t expecting to see us, and when they turned up and we were outside the church, honestly, it was one of the loveliest days, talking to people from Missouri, California, New
York, Mississippi, all over.
And they were so kind, and they all had their phones out and were taking pictures. One guy held out his phone and said, ‘Robson, would you please say, “Christ on a bike,”’ which is what Geordie says all the time. I said yes and then he goes, ‘Everyone, shut up! Robson’s going to say, “Christ on a bike!”’ And they all held their phones up to record it.
When I said it they went nuts. We were overcome with emotion, really, at how invested these people from another part of the world were in the show. We actually filled up. They stayed to watch filming
from behind the church wall and of course the producers are crew were going mad, saying, ‘They’re in the way! We can see them!’ It was such a highlight.
What would the blooper reel of Grantchester look like? Would you be in most of the outtakes?
A lot of the outtakes would be of me trying to light a cigarette with a lighter that doesn’t work. Sometimes it takes so long, I need a shave! They’re really old-fashioned. And once the flame jumped so high it nearly singed my hair.
But most of the outtakes would be of us laughing. Because the main cast know each other so well, we often lose it when we’re filming.
Rishi has devilment in his eyes, and when Alphy says something that spikes Geordie’s interest, I have to throw him a knowing look, and it’s the knowing looks that we just can’t do anymore. I just know that if I look at him, I’ll just go. Sometimes at those moments you get the complete clarity of, ‘What on earth am I doing with my life, pretending to be a 1950s’ detective solving murders with a vicar?!’ Then it’s just absolute laughter.
Also, I don’t speak in my true accent in the series, because we want Grantchester to appeal to the American market as well as the British. But occasionally I break into broad Northumbrian by accident when we’re filming and there will be silence from the other actor and I’ll be there thinking, ‘What are you waiting for? It’s your line!’ but it’s because nobody could understand what I’d said!
That accent is so thick it might as well be Gaelic. I remember in one scene this series, it was just me and Rishi and all of a sudden my father and his forefathers and my ancestors entered my body and I started talking broad Northumbrian. Rishi just lost it.
Why do you think Grantchester has been such a hit for a decade?
Grantchester is one of those rare hybrids. It’s a drama that has comedy in it and a lot of levity along with the serious storylines. With the beauty of Grantchester and the slower pace of life, it offers a lot of comfort to audiences, too.
