Robson Green will play a gruff, overworked policeman in ITV's new period crime drama Grantchester.
The series, set in the titular Cambridgeshire village in 1953, centres on intuitive, jazz-loving young vicar Sidney Chambers, played by Death Comes to Pemberley's James Norton, who strikes up a strong bond with Robson's methodical Inspector Geordie Keating as he assists the police officer in uncovering the truth behind the suspicious death of one of his parishioners.
The six-part series is adapted from a novel by Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death, by James Runcie, the son of ex-Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie, and also stars former EastEnders actress Kacey Ainsworth as Geordie's wife Cathy, who is the mother of their three children and is expecting her fourth.
Meanwhile, Morven Christie, who recently appeared in Death in Paradise, plays heiress Amanda Kendall who is in love with Sidney but whose father wants her to marry an aristocrat, while Only Fools and Horses' Tessa Peake-Jones co-stars as Sidney's doting housekeeper Mrs Maguire.
“Sidney is a charming, but complex character, a man of faith burdened by his past despite a distinguished wartime record, he’s funny, dashing and inquisitive," says Grantchester's executive producer Diederick Santer. "He loves being a parish priest in the exquisite village of Grantchester, but somehow it’s not enough and he still finds time to fall in and out of love and solve crimes.
"James Runcie has created this brilliant character and this glorious world, which Daisy Coulam is now bringing to the screen in her wonderful and lavish scripts, and I can’t wait for ITV’s audience to get to know him too.”
