Why can’t we get enough of TV's crime-solving vicars in the likes of Grantchester and Father Brown?

This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.

How can there be so much murder in one otherwise quiet country parish? The answer, of course, is that there can’t. You may as well wonder how Grantchester’s vicar fits in any actual vicaring between all his crime-solving, or if any real-life cleric resembles a studio-system film star like Alphy, the ITV drama’s latest, and likely final, 'Maigret of the manse'.

Grantchester returns this week for series 10, with number 11 confirmed to be its last – sad news for a show that has always carried its profound messages deceptively lightly. For regardless of its comely setting, Grantchester goes a lot deeper than may at first appear.

James Runcie, the creator of the original books, based his fictional vicar Sidney Chambers on the duties of his own father, a pre-Canterbury Robert Runcie, for whom "death did come to the door. There wasn’t any murder, but it was a life for my father that didn’t involve clocking off". The author once told me he set out to write what he called "the story of postwar Britain, a study of morality through stories of crime". And, sure enough, since it began in 2014, the TV version has danced nimbly between sleuthing caper and romantic intrigue, midcentury mores clashing with private passions and, ultimately, the burdens and delights of personal and social responsibility.

Against the chintzy period backdrop of dog walks and picnics by the Backs, the compassionate worldview shared by Alphy (Rishi Nair) and his policeman friend Geordie (Robson Green) would seem to belong to a more modern era, a long way from TV’s ecclesiastical sleuths of old.

Thirty years ago, we had Derek Jacobi in Cadfael. While the drama’s cerebral Benedictine monk was gentle and wise in his sleuthing, he was forced to leave justice to the whims of the king and the outcome of a scrappy sword fight.

Even more limited was Father Dowling Investigates, about a Catholic priest whose job seemed to be more of a plot device than a vocation – a lack of seriousness not helped by actor Tom Bosley’s global fame as Howard Cunningham in Happy Days – and who seemed perfectly willing to break into private houses and fib his way around Chicago like Columbo in a dog collar.

Despite being a much earlier literary creation, GK Chesterton’s Father Brown, as played by Mark Williams in the BBC’s long-running daytime drama, is more in keeping with TV’s more recent clerics. As in Grantchester, Father Brown’s postwar country setting (modernised from the books) provides fertile ground for rich storytelling. Brown uses his knowledge of human nature to solve crimes, and his own moral compass to decide whether to turn someone in. The challenges for him and Grantchester’s Alphy cut to the heart of what it means to carry other people’s dark secrets and heavy burdens.

For the Reverend Richard Coles, whose debut crime novel Murder Before Evensong was adapted for TV in 2025, a vicar makes for a natural protagonist. "Nobody asks what you’re doing if you turn up," he told RT. "You’re involved in human dramas and the motivations as to why somebody might murder somebody else. It’s your daily bread, in a way."

In its village crime rate, the vicars’ good looks and the neat resolutions, Grantchester may not always be an entirely accurate representation of life on Earth, but in its tireless curiosity about the human condition, its arrows shoot true. As Coles told us: "People bring to church their deepest fears and highest hopes. And that’s always a drama."

Read more:

• Grantchester's Charlotte Ritchie explains why she doesn't watch show
• Grantchester's Robson Green talks unexpected James Norton reunion: "It was just beautiful"

Grantchester returns to ITV on Wednesday 7th January at 9pm.

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