(gentle music) - It's been really important to me and to Daisy Coulam, who writes this show, to have a three-dimensional cast.
And of course the key relationship in Grantchester is Sidney and Geordie, but we also have an array of fantastic female characters in the show.
- There are some dramas where the female characters feel a little bit added on, and it was very important to us that those female characters that surround Sidney and Geordie have a very strong through line.
And we've got fantastic actresses that can play anything we throw at them.
- I think we do not really know what life was like because it's not documented very often, especially in dramas, what it was like for females at that time.
We're often given some real stereotypes that they are one thing or the other and the nice thing about Grantchester is that they don't do that.
They are confronting the difficulties that women did have in that era to make their voices heard.
- This is Guy doing what he always does.
He's trying to control you.
- He's not seeing her.
He wants to take her away, I won't let that happen.
He has no power anymore, Sidney.
- 1955, still not a brilliant time for women to explore their relationships and their world, and so particularly for Amanda, who is a woman who is leaving a loveless marriage, divorce was still frowned upon in those times and we wanted to explore how she copes with that.
- Thank you.
- You won't need to bother Mr.
Chambers further, will you?
Your situation could do no end of damage to his calling.
I'm sure you wouldn't want that.
- Of course.
- I think the problems that human beings face, our own difficulties and issues, they're not different whether it's 1954 or 2016.
It's just that the environment in which you have to deal with them is different, and I think that's always been what I've loved about this show.
- Can I go first?
- No, I've been rehearsing this and I'm scared it will go out of my head.
- Amanda, this is going to be hard enough as it is.
- These things only become relevant when you take modern issues and put them into that context.
I think Daisy's always written that brilliantly, because I think that's what she's interested in too, is when we look with a modern eye back at these rules that were, and this society, the way that society was then.
- I take it there's no point asking you?
- Actually-- - Half the village is here.
Think about how it looks if you leave together.
(gentle music)
