- Episode: 1 of 8
- ITV UK: Friday 3rd September 2021
Grantchester S6 Episode 1
It’s 1958 in Grantchester, and Reverend Will Davenport is revelling in his job – counselling couples, organising parish bake sales, helping the community. He’s thrown himself into his work, so much so that curate Leonard thinks it’s high time he had a holiday.
The vicarage family and the Keatings head to Merries Holiday Camp for a well-deserved break where they are greeted by Roy and Babs Reeves, the exuberant camp owners. Joined by Daniel, everyone is relaxed and ready to embrace the holiday spirit. Well, almost everyone.
Leonard, for whom the thought of ‘enforced fun’ is a little too much, prefers reading on the side-lines as the others take part in hula-hoop competitions, carousel rides, dance classes and daily exercises – not to mention the lovely legs competition which sees even Mrs Chapman shed some of her usual reserve.
Love is in the air too as Geordie and Cathy, Mrs C and Jack, and Leonard and Daniel enjoy each other’s company away from the stresses of daily life back in Grantchester. There’s even an extravagant romantic gesture as they attend dinner in the camp ballroom on their first evening, when fellow guest – and Merries regular – Sid Danker calls his wife Margie up on stage to present her with a ring to mark their second wedding anniversary.
Unfortunately Margie seems too upset with her husband for making such a spectacle of things, to enjoy the moment…
The only one of their party not part of a couple, Will finds himself drawn into a holiday romance with quick-witted and ever-cheerful Merries employee Sunny West, while Leonard strikes up a friendship with the camp’s photographer Bryan Stanford.
But when Roy Reeves is found dead one morning beneath a spotlight on the ballroom stage, a microphone in his hand, their holiday idyll is shattered.
Geordie is reluctant to get involved – can’t he have even five days off? But when he sees the ineptitude of the local police force in handling the crime scene, he can’t just sit by and watch.
Realising the death might not be accidental, and that Roy was somehow poisoned, Will and Geordie question Roy’s wife Babs and the camp staff, and it soon becomes clear that behind the smiles and jolly holiday façade almost everyone has a grudge against Roy, even some of the returning guests.
As a much less wholesome hidden side to Merries begins to emerge, it seems that everyone is pretending to be someone they are not, causing Will to question Sunny’s amorous intentions.
And when Leonard finds himself having to decline some unexpected romantic advances of his own, the stage is set for a holiday no one will ever forget.
Grantchester Cast
| Geordie Keating | Robson Green |
| Will Davenport | Tom Brittney |
| Leonard Finch | Al Weaver |
| Mrs Chapman | Tessa Peake-Jones |
| Cathy Keating | Kacey Ainsworth |
| Daniel Marlowe | Oliver Dimsdale |
| Jack Chapman | Nick Brimble |
| Esme Keating | Skye Lucia Degruttola |
| Ivy Keating | Rubie-Rose Fearfield |
| Dora Keating | Rose Allen |
| Margie Danker | Rachael Stirling |
| Sid Danker | Nick Holder |
| Bryan Stanford | Michael Abubakar |
| Sunny West | Jordan Alexandra |
| Roy Reeves | Andy Nyman |
| Babs Reeves | Annette McLaughlin |
| Gerry Wicks | Sam Phillips |
| David Keating | Carter-Jae O’Neil |
| The Merries House Band | Dylan Kirk & The Killers |
Written by Daisy Coulam. Directed by Rob Evans. Based on the novels The Grantchester Mysteries by James Runcie.
