‘Acting Was Always Going To Be Just A Sideline'

Grantchester star Robson Green talks fame, friendship and playing the funnyman.

- Katherine Hassell

Likeability. Some actors have it in spades. And Robson Golightly Green is one of them. Without it, he wouldn’t be on TV almost three decades after first finding fame wheeling hospital trolleys across our screens as Jimmy the porter in Casualty. Nor would he have the string of successes he has.

Soldier Soldier, Reckless, Touching Evil, Grafters, Wire In The Blood, Waterloo Road, Grantchester – the hit dramas are many. His travelogues (both fishing and non-fishing) such as Ultimate Catch, Tales From Northumberland and Robson Crusoe prove just as popular. He’s even topped the pop charts.

Whatever he does, Robson clearly has a ball. And you can’t help but warm to a man so quick to laughter who positively fizzes about a job he adores. He embodies that adage, ‘Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life’.

Did he ever imagine, when he was starting out, that all these doors would open? ‘Not at all,’ laughs the 52-year-old. ‘I never thought I’d make a living out of acting. I always thought this was going to be a sideline.’ How wrong he was.

Firm friends

Grantchester – the 1950s-set series featuring the unlikely but immensely engaging crime-solving duo of a detective and vicar – has proved a huge success. The friendship between married father-of-four Geordie Keating (Robson) and Reverend Sidney Chambers (James Norton) is at the show’s heart.