David Farnor | On 05, May 2021

Grace will return to ITV for Season 2.

From Endeavour creator Russell Lewis, Grace is an adaption of international, bestselling author Peter James’ award winning novels. Starring John Simm as Brighton-based Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, the drama debuted earlier this year with the first of two two-hour stories, based on the novels Dead Simple and Looking Good Dead.

Season 1 saw Grace’s career at rock bottom. Fixated by the disappearance of his beloved wife, Sandy, which haunts his thoughts, he’s in the last chance saloon running enquiries into long forgotten cold cases with little prospect of success. Following another reprimand for his unorthodox police methods, Grace is walking a career tightrope and risks being moved from the job he loves most. With so much at stake, his colleague Detective Sergeant Glenn Branson knows he has more to give and asks him for help with a case.

Co-starring Richie Campbell as Branson and Rakie Ayola as ACC Vosper, the first Grace film – Dead Simple – achieved consolidated ratings of 8.8m viewers on ITV.

Lewis commented: “After the overwhelmingly positive audience response to the seaside noir of Dead Simple, (tabloid trauma tales notwithstanding!) and Looking Good Dead cued up ready to go, all at Team Roy Grace are delighted to have been given the opportunity by ITV to return to Brighton (& Hove, actually!) to continue Roy’s story with a new series of films based on Peter James best-selling novels.”

Season 2 will see Simm reprise his role, this time in three two-hour adaptations – Not Dead Enough, Dead Man’s Footsteps and Dead Tomorrow.

Executive producers are Andrew O’Connor and Paul Sandler for Second Act Productions, Patrick Schweitzer for Tall Story Pictures, Michael Vine for Vaudeville Productions, Russell Lewis and Peter James.

ITV’s Head of Drama Polly Hill said: “John Simm has brilliantly brought the much-loved Detective Superintendent Roy Grace to screen and there are many more cases for the audiences to enjoy.”

 

John Simm to star in Peter James’ Grace for ITV

22nd December 2019

John Simm will star in Grace, a new ITV drama based on the novels by Peter James.

Screenwriter and Endeavour creator Russell Lewis has adapted two of international bestsellers novels for ITV from the Roy Grace series.

The two-hour dramas will narrate the first two stories in the series, Dead Simple and Looking Good Dead, which introduced Brighton based Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, a hard-working police officer who has given his life to the job.

Co-produced by Second Act Productions, Tall Story Pictures and Vaudeville Productions, the drama opens with Grace’s career at rock bottom. He’s fixated by the disappearance of his beloved wife, Sandy, which haunts his thoughts. He’s in the last chance saloon running enquiries into long forgotten cold cases with little prospect of success. Following another reprimand for his unorthodox police methods, Grace is walking a career tightrope and risks being moved from the job he loves most.

With so much at stake, his colleague Detective Sergeant Glenn Branson knows he has more to give and asks him for help with a case. When a stag night prank appears to go wrong and the groom goes missing, Branson calls upon Grace to unravel events that led to the mysterious disappearance three days before his wedding to his beautiful fiancé.

A successful property developer with everything to live for, there is no trace of the missing groom. Is this a case of stag night shenanigans gone badly awry? Or is this something more sinister?

With nothing but instinct, a lingering suspicion and his obsessive nature, Grace doggedly pursues the groom’s disappearance and becomes uneasily close to the bride to be.

Grace will begin filming in Brighton during the early months of 2020, with Simm taking the lead role of the tenacious detective. Executive producers of the series include Andrew O’Connor and Paul Sandler for Second Act Productions, Patrick Schweitzer for Tall Story Pictures, Michael Vine for Vaudeville Productions, as well as Lewis and James. The first film, Dead Simple, will be directed by John Alexander (Belgravia, Trust Me, Jamestown) with the second film, Looking Good Dead, directed by Julia Ford (Sticks and Stones, The Bay II, Safe).

Lewis says: “I’m thrilled and honoured to be involved in bringing Peter James’ brilliantly gripping series of Roy Grace novels to ITV. Each story is a fantastic, hair-raising, twisting, switch-back of a roller-coaster ride that grips the reader from first to last, and the opportunity to translate that best-selling magic to television is like all one’s Christmases and birthdays come at once.”

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