Brighton-based detective series Grace returns to our TV screens

SussexWorld

Brighton-based detective series Grace will return to our screens for its fifth season on ITV on Sunday, April 6 at 8pm.

Transcript

00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers.

00:06Lovely to speak to Peter James, especially at such an exciting time, and not just because, Peter,

00:10you are actually running like an Olympic champion at the moment with two personal bests in six days.

00:16What's that all about? To paraphrase when Harry met Sally, I'll have what he's having,

00:20but exciting too, because this Sunday it's the start of the fifth series on TV of Grace ITV.

00:28Four more episodes coming up, and that's episodes 13, 14, 15 and 16. It's phenomenal, isn't it,

00:35that this hit the ground running with such popularity, but is now into a fifth series.

00:41Can you believe that? No, I still have to pinch myself, because when,

00:47I mean I pinched myself when I first heard that ITV wanted to make it, and then I pinched myself

00:53again when they said, you know, what would you think about John Simm playing Roy Grace? Because

00:59honestly, if I'd had to do an e-fit when I first created Roy Grace in my head, it would have come

01:05up with John Simm. And he's been such a magical guy to work with, as also has Richie Campbell,

01:12because he looks exactly like the Glam Branson I had first envisaged. And these actors have taken

01:20over from your fictional characters in your mind as you write, haven't they, long since?

01:25They've taken over, and I now think of them when I'm creating the next book. I'm a hundred pages

01:31into the 22nd Roy Grace novel at the moment, and I've got John Simm, Zoe Tapper, Glam Branson,

01:38Richie Campbell in my head. What is such a joy is that the three of them, plus all the other

01:47type cast, they have such great chemistry. You know, they actually really like each other offset

01:54too. I had lunch with John Simm two weeks ago, he said, I can't wait to get started.

01:58He said it, and I was talking to Richie, he said, and he said, he can't wait either.

02:01And that's amazing because neither of them have done a series that's run this long. And you get

02:09fatigue, and a lot of actors go, I'm feeling type cast, I think I'd like to go and do Shakespeare

02:14or something. Whereas John is really happy. He took a break at Christmas and he did Scrooge

02:21at the Old Vic, but he just loves playing Roy Grace. And the whole, I think season five is

02:31even more exciting. I think it's the best series so far.

02:36Why is that? What do you think?

02:38There's a huge amount of emotion. The books and the television are slightly out of sync with some

02:46of the character arts. So in season five, we're seeing a relationship with Bruno,

02:55without saying too much about what then happens. We've got kind of the aftermath of what's happened

03:03with Sandy. That set against the backdrop, we've got, season five opens with, I think,

03:09one of the strongest of the stories, which is a bomb threat at the Brighton & Hove Albion football

03:19game. Roy is in the stadium with his son. And that's a really great episode. And I think all

03:30four episodes, people are going to really have fun. And I think they've been toned also to the

03:35mood that we're in right now. Some of the earlier episodes were pretty dark, but I've always, in the

03:42Roy Grace novels, tried to put a lot of humour in. And the humour has been sort of, if you like,

03:48upped and the darkness just lowered a little bit, just turned the real estate a bit.

03:52So you're hinting so much at what makes it so successful, isn't it? It's not just that each

03:57episode is individually enjoyable. It's the accumulation of our previous knowledge

04:01of the characters, isn't it, that we carry forward and that makes them matter to us.

04:07Absolutely. And you don't have to have watched one. You don't have to watch a Roy Grace novel.

04:11You can just watch it as a standalone. But the more you watch, the more you learn. It has been,

04:18it is almost like a soap opera at one level, in terms of key character arcs,

04:24Glenn Branson and his sort of train crash of a kind of marriage. And in a Roy Grace,

04:35moving from the grief of his missing wife into falling in love again with Cleo,

04:41having their first child, then discovering that he's got a child by his first wife that he never

04:47knew about. So I've tried always, I've tried always, not just in terms of injecting humor,

04:54but to inject real humanity in. I think one of the things, you know, I've been going out with

04:59the police, God, for 40 years. And one of the things that people forget about police is they're

05:08not just people in a sharp suit or in a uniform. They're human beings like you and I. They have

05:15the same issues. You know, they go to a terrible crime scene and they see a murdered child,

05:21for instance. And then they've got to go home and bath and put their own child to bed.

05:26You know, they're not, they're vulnerable to emotion too. And I think that

05:32real life, in real life, every police officer I've ever met, one of the questions I always say

05:37is, I say, do you think you've changed since you joined the force? All of them have in different

05:44ways, but they've become stronger people. They've become slightly more sceptical, you know, because

05:51coppers get good at telling when somebody's telling a lie or not. And so, you know, I've

05:55tried to show Roy Grace, Glenn Branson, Cleo, and the other characters all slowly changing,

06:06you know, as they progress through their careers. And how beautiful it's been so wonderfully

06:11realised on screen. But it's a double success, isn't it? Because not only have we got the fifth

06:16season starting, screening, just about to start filming the sixth for next year.

06:23I know, that's incredible that they actually commissioned that

06:28when we were only part way through filming last year. And that was great that they did that.

06:34It was so exciting. It was a good psychological boost for the cast. And I feel very, I feel

06:41in very safe hands with the ITV team. I mean, I'm consulted and my wife, Laura, every step,

06:49you know, any change they want to make, they kind of run by us. But then they create a bible for

06:54the whole series. I mean, it's a huge opus of, you know, this is going to be the story arc for

07:01Roy for season five. This is going to be the story arc for Glenn. This is going to be the story arc

07:06for Bruno. It's an incredible amount of work that goes into creating something that we're

07:15trying to keep the audience grip, sustain their interest in the characters, and give them a good

07:21time. You know, I want at the end of each episode, I want our viewers to have had something of a

07:28thrill, but also to have had a smile on their face and think, yeah, that was worth watching.

07:33It was a lovely prospect. You know what we'll all be doing for the next four Sundays. Peter,

07:38congratulations, and lovely to speak to you as always. Thank you.

07:42Lovely to speak to you, Phil, too. Thank you.

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