SFGate reports on the new Masterpiece Mystery “Grantchester” based on “the novel Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death, by James Runcie, who based the character, in part, on his late father, Lord Runcie, the archbishop of Canterbury in the 1980s.”
“Grantchester,” premiering … on PBS, seems on the surface to be rather typical “Masterpiece Mystery” fare: Set in 1953, in a quaint village near Cambridge University, a young vicar solves murders that seem to pile up, “Midsomer”-style, every week.
In fact, the first of the series’ six episodes fits that description almost too well, but pay attention to the details and you’ll find more than enough reason to keep watching….
But the real substance of the series is found in the observational details about public prejudices in the years after World War II. In the first episode, for example, Staunton’s widow, Hildegard (Pheline Roggan), is suspected of her husband’s murder in part because she’s a “kraut,” or, to some, a Nazi. When Amanda’s engagement ring goes missing at the dinner party, Johnny Johnson is immediately suspected. When Leonard Finch (Al Weaver) arrives at Grantchester to become the assistant curate of the parish, Geordie immediately types him as “a pansy.”
Watch the show and report back to The Café.
posted by Ann Fontaine