Courtney McGrailJames Norton, star of TV’s Grantchester, has criticised the trend of faith being portrayed negatively on television as “exorcisms and cults”.
The actor, who plays crimebusting cleric Rev. Canon Sidney Chambers in the series which is about to begin its third run, said the “idea of faith isn’t really explored any more on television; now the only real representations of it are either comic or sinister with exorcisms and weird culty things”.
The 31-year-old said he was proud to play the role of the sleuthing vicar. “Sidney has a pure and simple faith. He doesn’t make it funny or dark in any twisted way,” he said.
Hero
“He’s a hero and has a faith and there are lots of good people out there who are the same, so I’m proud to play him.”
The Yorkshire-born actor, touted to be the next James Bond, was educated at a Catholic boarding school where he caught the acting bug after playing Joseph in a school nativity play. He studied theology at Cambridge before pursuing acting at RADA.
Small film parts in An Education, Rush and Belle followed before he found fame in TV dramas Happy Valley and Grantchester.