This script has been lightly edited for clarity.

 

Jace Lacob: I’m Jace Lacob and you’re listening to MASTERPIECE Studio.

Spring has once again graced the cozy village of Grantchester with its presence. Easter celebrations, romance, and the smell of wisteria create an atmosphere of new life and new beginnings for Grantchester’s inhabitants. But murder on the other hand, especially in Grantchester, knows no season.    

 

CLIP

Geordie: Just like that fellow of yours.

Alphy: What fellow?

Geordie: Jesus.

Alphy: I’d say there’s zero chance Reg is rising again.

 

But murder isn’t the only thing happening in Grantchester this season, far from it. Recent events have Leonard and Daniel navigating both their relationships to their parents, as well as their relationship to each other. As Leonard learns of his father’s passing, he’s confronted with a flurry of emotions and questions, as well as some fresh perspective. 

 

CLIP

David: Okay, here we go. I know how strongly you feel, but my parents are getting on now and I don’t want to miss this chance to be able to—

Leonard: Go. You should go.

David: I have more. I have a whole speech.

Leonard: No speech necessary.

David: What changed your mind?

Leonard: Just a little perspective, and a very large glass of whiskey.

 

Back at the vicarage, love is in the air for Alphy Kottaram, or as Geordie calls him, “the good reverend love ‘em and leave ‘em.” After several unsuccessful dates with young women around town, Alphy has finally found a connection with librarian Meg and invites her over for dinner. If only he could just get everyone else out of the vicarage…

 

CLIP

Mrs. C: Miss Gray.

Meg: Mrs. Chapman.

Alphy: She’s just leaving.

Mrs. C: Aren’t you looking smashing. Doesn’t she look smashing?

Alphy: Our love to Jack, Mrs. C.

Mrs. C: He’s been a bag of nerves all day, bless him. All a fluster.

Alphy: Not really.

Mrs. C: Liar! Do you like slow gin?

Meg: I can’t say I’ve ever tried it.

Mrs. C: I’ll get out my special batch. Usually only comes out at funerals.

Alphy: Oh, that funeral can be arranged.

 

Lead writer and executive producer Daisy Coulam joins us today to discuss this milestone season and how she continues to keep Grantchester fresh and captivating after 10 glorious seasons.

 

Jace Lacob: And this week we are joined by Grantchester head writer and executive producer Daisy Coulam. Welcome.

Daisy Coulam: Hello. How are you?

Jace Lacob: I’m good. How are you doing?

Daisy Coulam: Very good, yeah. It feels like hardly any time since we last talked.

Jace Lacob: It’s been a year, which is crazy.

Daisy Coulam: Has it?

Jace Lacob: And what’s even crazier is it’s been 10 years that Grantchester has been on, and like Grantchester, MASTERPIECE Studio is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year as well, which is crazy. I personally can’t think of another show that’s been so inexorably linked with MASTERPIECE Studio, than Grantchester, which we’ve been covering since Series Two. What does it feel like to be reaching that 10 year milestone with Grantchester?

Daisy Coulam: Do you know, I feel like all of us have grown up with this show. Funny enough, I looked back at Episode One the other day, everyone looks so young. It’s like an entirely different show. It’s evolved into something so different. I feel incredibly lucky, really, that’s what I feel, that I’ve had 10 years of such joy, really. I have a feeling that you don’t get it everywhere else.

Jace Lacob: You have the somewhat dubious distinction of having the most MASTERPIECE Studio episodes to your name, which is, I lost count around 10, I think, at least 10. How challenging and how rewarding is it to write a show across 10 series?

Daisy Coulam: It is a privilege I think, that’s what I’ve realized. I’m sorry, I’m starting to sound really emotional now, aren’t I, even though it’s not over yet. I think you get to an age where you look back and think, oh my, this doesn’t happen every day. This doesn’t happen, this kind of luck doesn’t happen. And I just think, I feel like I’ve gotten better as a writer. And that’s a really nice thing to be allowed to get better and not to be sacked after the first episode, to be here in Series 10 and still be finding new things, fun things that I wanted to do that I’ve never done before on this show.

Jace Lacob: One of the things I love about Grantchester is that the show changes. Vicars come and go, time passes, relationships ebb and flow. Is there a particular beauty in the fact that this series, which is about murder and morality, but also about found family, has also managed to capture that passage of time in such a real way? Now I’m getting emotional. Now I’m getting emotional, Daisy.

Daisy Coulam: Yeah, it is, isn’t it? There’s something emotional about it. I think it is because I think that’s sort of like life, isn’t it really? Life moves on and people move on and Will’s gone and Alphy’s here. But somehow life, I was about to quote Jurassic Park there, “Life finds a way” life moves on and friendships move on and people evolve and that’s what I love about this show is that you get to follow them evolving through [the] series. There’s so many different things going on this series. I don’t know, I just, it’s great. When I think about it, it’s over a quarter of my life that I’ve been with this show. Did everyone tell you about their tattoos last year?

Jace Lacob: Yes.

Daisy Coulam: Yeah, Emma and I got one too. And I think we’ve persuaded Robson to get one. So I think we’ve memorialized it quite well.

Jace Lacob: It’s on your body. It’s in your body and on your body.

Daisy Coulam: Yeah, my mum was appalled. Whatever, that’s fine. She’s getting over it.

Jace Lacob: During that quarter of your life, as you put it, you’ve written other projects like Deadwater Fell, which I adored. But Grantchester has been this unstoppable juggernaut. How has Grantchester changed your life since it first launched? How big of a part of your life has it become beyond just that tattoo?

Daisy Coulam: I think for me, it’s given me confidence in my abilities to write. It’s basically, I’ve grown up, I think, with this show and I feel like now I could go on and do anything else, and yet also so proud of what I’ve done here, if that makes any sense.x

Jace Lacob: It does make sense. And the Grantchester of 2025 is very different from the James Runcie novels on which the show is based. Do you ever look back and realize how much ground you’ve covered in 10 series and how far, or does it feel like it still hews closely to the novel’s original DNA, that this is a show about crime and punishment, forgiveness, and love?

Daisy Coulam: I think the bones of James Runcie, what he wanted to say about hate the sin, but love the sinner and the kind of warmth of his book, I think that that sort of DNA is still there. But I think we’ve gone very far off. I mean, James is still involved in it and he still gives us notes and we still see him occasionally and we still have his blessing, I hope, I think.

But it has, it’s evolved into its own thing now. It’s very much off book. It’s a weird thing because I think they sort of create their own stories after a while. We only need like half an a day in a room and we’ve sort of created the next series. It sort of self perpetuates somehow.

Jace Lacob: In as much as the vicars might change, James Norton to Tom Brittney to Rishi Nair, there are a few constants with Grantchester. One is Robson Green’s Geordie, and the other who you mentioned just a few minutes ago is of course executive producer Emma Kingsman-Lloyd. How integral has Emma and your friendship with her been to the success of Grantchester?

Daisy Coulam: I think Emma and Robson are sort of, I was going to say mummy and daddy, which they would not like, but they’re sort of like the linchpins of this really in a way because Emma has such a strong sense, often, I’ll come up with ideas that she’s like, that cannot happen. And she’s always right. Sometimes I go a bit too dark or sometimes a bit too silly. And she’s like the guiding light and Robson is, the warmth comes from him, I think. He sets the tone and everyone who comes onto that set has a good time. And I think between the two of them, they’ve sort of guided it forward and I’ve jumped on the back of the hay wagon and kept going with them.

Jace Lacob: So I want to quote something you said back in 2017. We were talking about an episode where Leonard quoted Brecht, “Art is not a mirror with which to reflect reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.” And I asked you if Grantchester was mirror or hammer, and your response was, “I would say both. I doubt there’s many people who are going to have their lives shaped by watching Grantchester.” Do you still feel that way? I think it’s touched a lot of people over a decade now.

Daisy Coulam: Do you know, I remember you asking that question because I was like, I put it in the script but I have no idea what it means. What did I mean by that? I do think Grantchester touches people. The people who love it really love it. I met a guy who sat in the church and he said he’d come to England because he’d watched Grantchester and he found Leonard’s story really profound about acceptance and homosexuality. And you suddenly go, okay, it does.

We had a lovely letter and photo from somebody whose mother was born with a limb difference like Miss Scott and said that he’d never seen it on television, that somebody representing somebody like his mother who was very kind of shy about how she looked. And I just think little things you don’t realize do affect people and I think it’s always lovely when we get those letters. You’re like, oh my god, yeah. Yeah, of course people relate to that.

Jace Lacob: Mirror and hammer.

Daisy Coulam: Mirror and hammer, do you think?

Jace Lacob: I mean mirror in that you’re capturing a specific picture, portrait of Britain at a very specific time, but hammer, you are making those differences. You are shaping reality for people to see themselves in this story, to see a piece of themselves that maybe they haven’t seen on screen before. And to sort of push our compassion for our neighbors.

Daisy Coulam: Fellow man.

Jace Lacob: And our fellow man, yeah.

Daisy Coulam: And yeah, and I think somebody like Leonard is always a good example of that who, I think some people are still, homosexuality is still a thing that they find difficult, and somehow through Leonard you can explore that in a way that isn’t too, I don’t know, he’s such a warm character that you feel very protective above him. So it’s that kind of thing I think we can explore. Yeah again, hammer and mirror.

Jace Lacob: Hammer and mirror, hammer and mirror. After 10 series, it can be hard to keep things as a writer feeling fresh, but Series 10 is one of my favorite Grantchester series to date.

Daisy Coulam: Yay.

Jace Lacob: Each episode, I think, accomplishes something different either in terms of story or tone. Episode One feels Hitchcockian with its mistaken identity plot. Episode two grapples with identity politics. Episode Three strays into French Farce territory. Were you conscious of these tonal or even genre shifts? Were you looking to challenge yourself as a writer with this series?

Daisy Coulam: I think we always are, and I think we had some restraints. Sometimes restraints are good, and we had a lot of episodes where we were like, right, we need to think a little bit, actually, I was going to say outside the box, but mainly inside the box. We’ve got to keep this quite a small, tight story so we can schedule it. Like episode three and episode five both came from that, from restraints really. I had to play in the vicarage Episode Three, for example, but actually that sort of lent into what I’d always wanted to do, which was a Frasier episode. as,

As a huge fan of Frasier, I said to Emma ages ago, is there a way we can do Frasier? And this felt like the perfect opportunity, which was in a vicarage with some strippers and some vicars. You know, it kind of worked really well. I think we try and challenge ourselves each time to really, it’s a balancing act, but try and make that crime story sort of knotty as possible and interesting and yeah.

Jace Lacob: Alphy’s tenure at the vicarage has sort of shaken up those comfortable dynamics of the show, which is exactly what you need for a long running series. How has the show changed with Rishi Nair’s Alphy in the dog collar?

Daisy Coulam: What’s great is, because every time you think, oh God, if this doesn’t work, we won’t have a series, Rishi and Robson get on brilliantly. What I love about his character is that he carries things so lightly. You know he’s got a past, you know something big’s kind of coming in this series, but he carries it with such warmth and compassion and humor, I think that gives you further to go. Halfway through this series, we were like, oh no, let’s save that till the next series, you know.

You could do much more with him kind of just being himself and lovely and getting on with Robson. It sort of invigorated the show really, I think. And that’s no disrespect to anyone else, it’s just a different character comes in, different energy. Yeah, I feel like we could keep going for another 20 years maybe.

 

MIDROLL

 

Jace Lacob: I want to talk about Episode Three, which you touched on. The plot ricochets from a strip club to the vicarage, to the police station. It’s got a bit of everything, vicars and strippers, a crime recreation, Leonard drunkenly putting on an accent. I love his “me knees!”, every time he gets me. “Me knees!” Alphy and Meg’s thwarted dinner date. You said Frasier. I want to talk a bit more about where the idea for this episode, which pulls everyone into the vicarage, came from. How much of it was actually Frasier?

Daisy Coulam: It was Frasier, it was, I mean basically let’s draw on all the 90s sitcoms. And somehow as soon as I’d got that in my mind, and as soon as I thought it was harking back to when Leonard did his nativity I was like, Leonard trying to put on a play is like one of the funniest things ever. So let’s have him try and reconstruct the crime and be drunk and have everyone in the room, Mrs. C. It sort of weirdly was one of the easiest ones to write because once I got going, they sort of chat away to themselves and Geordie trying to sort of corral this madness and try and get some actual answers. Yeah, I had such fun on that episode.

Jace Lacob: When Leonard turns up on the doorstep with a flask and says,

 

CLIP

Leonard: Oh.

Kitty: Hello!

Leonard: Well, this looks, um… D’you know, I’m not actually sure what this looks like.

Geordie: It’s a copper, two vicars, two strippers.

Mrs. C: You’re strippers?!

Kitty: I prefer ‘carnal artiste’.

Meg: I’m just here for the food.

 

Jace Lacob: I feel like we’ve entered that, yeah, that 90s sitcom or French farce kind of territory in the best possible way. How did you look to balance the humor in this episode, that sort of comedy of errors, with the murder and emotional arcs?

Daisy Coulam: Emma would’ve been instrumental in this, in pulling me back from maybe becoming too farcical. But also there is poignancy in all the characters. I think that’s the thing, they can be funny. For example, Reverend David, who kind of is sort of a buffoon really in this episode, you do get a moment of poignancy with him when you realize he’s just a lonely man, really. He sort of is as lost as Alphy is in a way. And I think that’s what you realize, is all these characters, however big and kind of blousy they are, they all have a heart and they all have a sort of sadness to them really, which it is nice to explore that contrast, I think.

Jace Lacob: This is largely an episode of interiors, so the vicarage, Tassels Club, Cambridge nick, but it doesn’t ever feel claustrophobic, but expansive, if that makes sense. The recreation at the vicarage of the murder of Madam was sheer genius, I thought. How do you see this episode using its interiors for dramatic effect?

Daisy Coulam: So Rob Evans, the director who’s done a million episodes of this show, he knows those sets inside out and he made that space look so big and expansive, I think. Like the vicarage, he kept the doors open. They lit it differently so that the lighting was warmer and you kind of had shadows and you can see all the way through to the kitchen at one point. And there are people in the background and sound and stuff. I think we had limited space, but we didn’t have limited imagination. I think that was the key. And Rob is always great at getting those big moments in tiny, tiny rooms. I mean, think of all the interview room scenes we’ve done. But yeah, it was a challenge, but also really fun.

Jace Lacob: I love the relationship that is unfolding between Alphy and Mrs. C, who dotes on him in a way that she never quite did with Will or Sidney. And she has such lofty expectations of this date with Meg, the coq au vin, the flowers, the napkins folded into swans. What do you make of Alphy and Mrs. C’s dynamic?

Daisy Coulam: That’s lovely. And that sort of almost came from Tessa and Rishi on set, really. Their dynamic is very warm. They’re very huggy, warm people. And when you see them together, you’re like, oh, I want more hugging like that. And she’s very motherly to him in the show. And it’s one of those, again, I’m going to use the word organic, but it sort of organically came about, that connection, and we kind of kept using it. And I think it really, I don’t know, the vicarage feels warmer because of those two being in it, I think. Yeah, they’re just lovely together.

Jace Lacob: Meg and Alphy have this playful banter that I love, and which speaks to their sort of shared background in letters as a librarian and a vicar.

 

CLIP:

Alphy: This doesn’t have to be the end.

Meg: What exactly did you have in mind?

Alphy: Come over for dinner. I’ll cook.

Meg: A date?

Alphy: Let’s call it an apology.

Meg: Oh, I’ll be calling it “Great Expectations”. Don’t let me down again, Mr. Kottaram.

 

Jace Lacob: Where did the notion of Meg come from, particularly the reveal that she’s also the daughter of the bishop and therefore perhaps maybe not so ideal for Alphy?

Daisy Coulam: Yeah, we wanted a sort of meeting of minds, I think for this. We wanted somebody who challenged him, because Alphy is a sort of bookish sort, and he’s clever, but not kind of vocal about it. He keeps it to himself. And then comes this woman who, she’s sassy and she’s cool, and she also likes everything he likes. We wanted her to be the ideal partner, really. And then, oh God, no, she’s not the ideal partner at all. She’s the bishop’s daughter.

Alex and Emma and I sat in on an audition between Meg, who’s played by Christie and Alphy, Rishi. We do chemistry tests, and they were so good together. And they were sparky together and in real life they get on really well. Again, I think it sometimes is about two people meeting and actually liking each other, does come across on screen. So yeah, it was really nice to do a bit of love interest with Alphy, who we haven’t really necessarily explored that side of.

Jace Lacob: Like a bad penny, Reverend David Lane turns up again here and I was so shocked to see Jonathan Rhodes back, particularly with a stripper, excuse me, his niece on his arm. What made you want to bring back David for a return? Was it less a bit of vital clerical importance than it was a sense of closure for Alphy?

Daisy Coulam: We often do this on this show, we’ll see, I mean, he had I think three episodes last series, and some actors just come on and totally own the screen. And we just knew we had to bring him back. It’s the same with Ollie who plays Daniel. He was a sort of one, I think he was a sort of suspect in series two or something. And we were just like, we love him, how can we make him come back? Let’s get him together with Leonard. You often take inspiration from what the actors bring to it and then they kind of fold back into the show.

Jace Lacob: I love Alphy’s conversation with David because it refocuses what they have in common, their vocation as priests.

 

CLIP

David: It’s the life we chose, I suppose.

Alphy: Or, that chose us.

David: It chose us, didn’t it? Rather lovely when you think about it like that.

 

Jace Lacob: How does this moment reshape Alphy’s view of David, and does it reaffirm his belief in loving thy neighbor?

Daisy Coulam: Yeah, I think so. I think it’s in that moment he realizes that he may be an idiot, this man, but he has a good heart. And like all of us, you never know what struggle somebody else is going through. You’ve got to show compassion. And that’s kind of his role really is just to see the good in people and to care for them. And I really liked that moment. It’s funny, it almost got cut and then we were like, no, we’ve got to keep it in because it says something bigger, I think than just, he was a silly man. It says he’s a troubled man as well, and aren’t we all?

Jace Lacob: And I think too, it’s important that that conversation comes after Alphy’s identity as sort of this quintessentially English vicar who was questioned in Episode Two in the ‘bright sari’ exchange he has with the Anglo-Indian professor, and then he makes samosas, or as he calls it, “an identity crisis on a plate.” And I think it does reconnect him to that, that they have been chosen by this thing that he does belong in a way, that maybe he’s searching for.

Daisy Coulam: Yeah, that he is part of the church and he is one with God, I suppose. And that episode is great, Episode Two, where Alphy is questioned by the professor about, do you really think this policeman likes you, or is he just using you? And it really throws his whole identity into question.

Jace Lacob: Geordie catches his son David, trying on a dress, and later it becomes clear that David is deeply afraid of his father. Does David’s reaction have Geordie questioning his role as a father and a role model for his son?

Daisy Coulam: Yeah, we wanted to do a story about parenthood not always being easy and not always connecting with your children. And those moments when you think, how could I have played that differently? Again, it’s sort of about identity, I suppose. It’s about how you connect to your child and how you find that common ground. It goes in a slightly unexpected way, I think, that story, in quite a lovely way.

Jace Lacob: Leonard’s drinking comes into focus in this episode with several characters, including Alphy, Sylvia, and even Dickens, beginning to see just how much he’s drinking. I love him passed out on the couch and Dickens is just sort of sadly staring at him. Meg finds it sort of endearing that he drunkenly creates a poem for her about cheese, but Alphy is instinctively troubled. Should we expect a dark time ahead for Leonard?

Daisy Coulam: A complex time I would say, a complex time. We like to test Leonard because he’s, firstly, Al is such a brilliant actor and you can take him anywhere you want to. He can do comedy, he can do very, very troubled scenes, and yet he does them all with such delicacy that we are happy to take him anywhere. Yeah, we’re very lucky with Al, and that’s sort of one of the strands that keeps going through the series. So yes, that’s what I’m saying. I’m trying not to spoil it. Let’s just say there are some interventions.

Jace Lacob: Interventions ahead. We’re not even to the halfway point of this 10th series, but I am curious, what can you tease about what’s coming up for the rest of Series 10?

Daisy Coulam: Ooh. Yeah, the women get their moment. There’s a bit of a fashion boutique action. There’s a sort of night of the souls with Geordie and Alphy and Leonard, where I really wanted to see where men discuss feelings so I put those three in a scene together. We’ve got a band. We’ve got quite a few things that yeah, there’s some good crimes coming up. And we’ll figure out Alphy’s past a bit more, I suppose. We’ll come face to face with what he’s been hiding.

Jace Lacob: Intriguing. Daisy Coulam, thank you so very much.

 

Next time, Alphy says hello to a familiar face. 

 

CLIP

Potts: Alphaeus!

Alphy: Potts!

Potts: Oh, what a tonic it is to see you.

 

Next week we’re joined by Grantchester’s newest vicar, actor Rishi Nair, as he shares exploring Alphy Kottaram’s past this season.