PASADENA, California — The young vicar is eye candy. His crime-fighting partner, a police detective, is middle-age sexy.
As played by James Norton and Robson Green, the characters make PBS’s Masterpiece series Grantchester (airing 9 p.m. today) a far cry from Father Brown, another British TV show about a man of the cloth with a taste for sleuthing.
Brown is solidly avuncular. Norton’s Sidney Chambers is handsome, moody and passionate about God, jazz, whiskey and women — especially his ex, now well if not happily married — and cracking cases in his English village of Grantchester.
Green’s Detective Geordie Keating, a tough lawman and dedicated family man, is adjusting to his unorthodox partnership with Chambers but can’t wrap his head around the vicar’s bachelorhood. Keating recommends marriage, although the vicar’s life is well-tended by brisk housekeeper Mrs. Maguire (Tessa Peake-Jones), and the detective’s own fidelity is tested in season two.
Norton is popping up regularly on TV these days, in projects including War & Peace and Netflix’s new Happy Valley. Green is a veteran leading man whose extensive credits include the series Touching Evil and Wire in the Blood.
The pair click on screen as the hard-charging cop and sensitive vicar. In an interview, Norton and Green bantered and traded compliments as they discussed their characters.
Q: This is your first project together and you’re both leads. Was there an adjustment period?
Norton: I remember the first scene we shot. I knew he was a good guy. You work in the industry and hear things.
Q: You heard rumours about him?
Norton (smiling): Oh, awful. No, he comes with a great reputation. But it was very apparent early on. You turned to me after a couple takes and said: ‘Oh, you’re good.’ And similarly it was immediately apparent he’s a master.
Q: Chemistry is key in romance. Also true with a buddy pairing?
Green: Yes. In series two, it’s all about fracturing the relationship, jeopardizing it. But the conflict all has to come out of, ‘I don’t want to lose you as a friend.’ It comes out of a genuine affection and caring for one another.
Norton: But they never talk about it: ‘I love you, man.’ It’s so fun to play with, two men who have such affection for one another, in the 1950s, but aren’t able to tell one another. … It’s done through backgammon or beer or little gestures.
AP: Does Sidney find love or does his former girlfriend still have his attention?
Norton: She will always have his attention. It’s a Ross and Rachel thing. Awful reference, but we just saw the Friends cast reunited. Everyone around them knows they [Sidney and Amanda] should be together, they know they should, but they can’t.
