Grace: nine reasons the detective series is the best thing on telly

Think about it, and it’s not difficult to see why Grace has established itself quite so quickly and quite so dominantly. It’s a great programme, well acted, meticulously plotted, full of twists and turns and with a very strong sense of location. All the ingredients are there… but let’s break them down. Here are nine reasons why I think it is comfortably the best thing on telly at the moment. I am sure you will think of other reasons and you will probably disagree with mine. But that’s all part of the fun!

Reason number one. The starting point has to be that John Simm is quite simply the perfect Grace. Simm was brilliant in Life Of Mars (2006-07), that hugely-successful TV series about a detective who, after being involved in a car accident in 2006, wakes up to find himself in 1973, trapped in the thoroughly un-PC world that we all lived in back then. So Simm has certainly got form as a copper. But he sheds his “previous” so effortlessly now to become a very different kind of detective in the new ITV series. You don’t think of DCI Sam Tyler; you think solely of Roy Grace, and that’s a measure of Simm’s skill in the part. And the great thing is that Simm has been so quick to get into his stride. Author Peter James has spoken in the past about various actors he would have liked to see as Grace. And many of them would have been fine. But from the word go, the casting of John Simm has felt right…. Which brings us on to reason two. And this is the big one…

Reason number two. We’ve all waited for TV adaptations of our favourite books, haven’t we. And how many times have we been disappointed with the results as a bunch of strangers barge their way into our minds – via the TV screens – and unceremoniously supplant the images we have cherished for years. And so we howl an indignant “No! That’s not what he looks like!” Well, we’ve yet to experience that with the TV version of Grace. Grace has been part of our reading psyche for a decade and a half now. Grace (or our own particular versions of him) is completely established in our minds. And yet John Simm and the gang have wandered in and made themselves completely at home. Yes, fleetingly you might think ‘No, that’s not Cleo’, but it’s not long before she is. And that has been the joy. Grace has been brought to the television screen with absolutely no sense of betrayal. The image I have held of Roy Grace for so long has gone – and I am more than happy to have John Simm in my mind from now on. But talking of Cleo….

Reason number three. Number three has to be the way that Cleo’s arrival in episode three has added a huge new dimension to the series. There had been chunterings from episodes one and two that Simm’s Grace was rather morose. Cleo has changed that in an instant. Zoe Tapper as Cleo and Simm as Grace have made us feel straightaway the attraction between them. Simm – again all part of his skill in the role – gives us a Grace transformed whenever Cleo is around. He absolutely lights up. And suddenly there is so much more depth to the character. Peter James has often said that he wants his characters to have a background; not just to be people who solve crimes and then go home without giving those crimes a second thought. He wants his cast to be people with home lives, people whose work lives have a direct impact on their not-at-work lives. With the arrival of Cleo, Grace is suddenly that fully rounded character – and the great news for the series is that the change makes us all invest in him so much the more. And that’s what is going to keep us coming back.

Reason number four. Reason number four is that Peter James has so skillfully given himself somewhere to go with the books and now with the series. Each book stands alone. Each book can be enjoyed alone. And it is certainly the same with the TV episodes. But the real delight is that we get so much more from each book and each episode when we read or view it in order. With each book, James is developing a world – a world that leaves us wanting to know what happens next. With each book, we know that a complex crime is going to be solved – and there is huge satisfaction in that. But we know too that Grace’s relationship with Cleo is going to develop; we know that the mystery of the disappearance of Grace’s wife will deepen; we feel that his difficult relationship with ACC Alison Vosper (Rakie Ayola) is pretty certain to sour further; and we know that DS Glenn Branson (Richie Campbell) is a friend he is going to need increasingly. And that’s the point. Those relationships develop from book to book, from episode to episode. They have their own momentum which will always carry us forward even when the current crime has been solved. Which brings me to reason number five.

Reason number five. I am not sure I can remember the last time I was so disappointed when an episode of anything finished. Reason number five is the sense of expectation that each episode so skilfully builds. It reminds me of that appalling feeling of “How am I going to get through the next week!” I used to feel at the closing credits of every episode of Dallas back in the late 70s. It’s a shameful secret to share, I know, and I would stress that I did many years of penance by studying culture at the highest level, even completing a PhD about a very obscure French dramatist whom absolutely no one now remembers. But oh, that Dallas excitement, that wishing away of the entire next week ahead. There is something of that (albeit slightly more measured) as the Grace credits roll each week. Which brings me to reason number six for enjoying it all so much.