Season four of the Brighton-based detective series Grace isn’t just delighting audiences millions strong. It’s delighting Roy Grace creator Peter James.
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00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Always a
00:06huge, huge privilege and pleasure to speak to Peter James. And we are mid-series, series
00:11four, and goodness, it's brilliant and you are loving it too. What's pleasing you so
00:17much about the fourth series of Grace? ITV, good audiences, strong stories, beautifully
00:24filmed. Why are you so liking it?
00:27I think what I'm loving about most of all is just how the cast have still grown more
00:34and more and more into the characters over the past four seasons. And I think that what
00:42makes a drama, probably more than any other aspect, is if there is chemistry between the
00:50key actors. If you feel there's not chemistry, often a show can be really flat. You can have
01:00the world's greatest actors and if they don't gel together, it's dead. Whereas John Simm
01:07and Ritchie Campbell, you just feel that they are mates and they are. They've become really
01:14good friends off screen as well as on. And the love affair between Roy and Cleo, again,
01:23I think is palpable. You feel it. They're not faking it. They are because they're actors.
01:29Is that good luck or brilliant casting?
01:33I think it's really hard. However much you choose actors when you cast, you don't know,
01:42are they going to get on well together? I think, who was it, Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis,
01:53I think they actually hated each other. She said kissing him was like kissing Hitler.
02:02But that could heighten the performances, couldn't it? It could work both ways.
02:06Yeah, I think it can work both ways. But I think there was a genuine warmth between John Simm
02:11and Zoe that comes across in spades. And what's great is now you'll be seeing Sandy on screen as
02:19well. There's that warmth between Zoe, contrast with that. You could see the coldness in Sandy
02:25as well. And I love how pacey it is. I think the violence has been toned down quite a lot,
02:38which is good. In Dead Man's Time, the first episode in season four, although a lady is
02:50robbed in her home, beaten up, we don't see that. We see her afterwards. We don't see
02:57anybody hitting somebody. And I think that's good. I think it's family entertainment.
03:05Yes.
03:07I think people are fascinated by Prime, but I don't think people necessarily want to see
03:14all the horrors of it.
03:16They're fascinated by the puzzle, aren't they?
03:19By the puzzle, by why people do the things they do, and what have they done, and who's done it.
03:27Well, and CRS5 is just finishing filming.
03:31Yeah, they're literally in the last three weeks of filming season five,
03:37which will be on next year, probably around the same time.
03:40Fantastic. And that will go up to episode 16. And the really intriguing thing is that
03:44obviously these episodes are breathing down your neck, aren't they?
03:48Yeah, no pressure on me to write fast, eh?
03:52And it's just, well, we're just coming on to the 21st, Roy Grace. I'm just writing the
03:5821st, Roy Grace, so the 20th is about to be published. And so I've got ICB breathing down
04:06my neck, going, eh, can you write a bit faster?
04:09Absolutely. But you wouldn't want it any other way, because it's his dream territory. You'd
04:12wanted Grace to be on the screens for so many years. It's happening, but it's happening perfectly.
04:19Well, yeah, I think the real magic for me is that, as you know, we've had many conversations
04:26over the years that I always said, I'd rather Grace was never made than made badly. And I've
04:31been so lucky here. The team that we have, not just the cast, but Kieran Murray-Smith,
04:39the producer, the ICB executives, Maya Schickel, who's the script editor, they are a dream team to
04:45work with. They understand Grace. And they've been really sympathetic in the way they bring
04:52him to the screen. And I think you're always going to get, if you watch a movie of a book
05:01you've read, you're always going to think, well, that doesn't look like the way I imagined him in
05:06the book. But even with that, most people, I think, have accepted. They say, OK, maybe Roy
05:12is not how he looked in the book, but he's great in the series. Yeah, he has. I mean,
05:21John Simm told me a quite funny story. He said he went to the Brighton Hove Albion to a match last
05:26year. And people were shouting, hey, Roy Grace, in the Amex stadium. The ultimate accolade. Well,
05:35that's great. Well, congratulations on the latest series in our constellation. When series four
05:40ends, it's the series five is in the bag. Well, next year. Thank you, Phil. Lovely to speak to
05:46you. You too.