Reverend Sidney Chambers

The **Reverend Sidney Chambers** is the Grantchester Parish Priest during the 1950s, played by James Norton. He made his first appearance in episode 1 of series 1 and made his last appearance in episode 2 of series 4.

When we first meet him he is in his early thirties. He is a lover of warm beer and whiskey, jazz a keen cricketer and an avid reader. However, he is a man of deep internal conflict between his duties as a priest and his personal life.

He had been ordained soon after the war during which he served with the Scots Guards achieving the rank of Captain. He was awarded the Military Cross and is haunted by the death of a young solider under his command. After he was ordained, he held a brief curacy in Coventry and a short spell as a domestic Chaplain to the Bishop of Ely, and finally was appointed vicar to the church of St Andrew and St Mary in Grantchester in 1952.

He had read theology at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge where he still enjoys dining rights and still enjoys a reputation for his rebellious nature. He spends his time assisting DI Geordie Keating in solving murders in Cambridge and beyond.

## Character History

### Series 1 (2014)

When a man's death is ruled a suicide, his mistress appeals to the Reverend Sidney Chambers, insisting her lover was murdered. Chambers uses his position to make inquiries, bringing him the disapproving attention of an overworked local police detective, Inspector Geordie Keating.

Jennifer bullies Sidney into attending Amanda's engagement dinner, where he reunites with old school friends.

Sidney rescues a parishioner from her burning home, but shortly afterwards her husband is stabbed to death in a public garden. As Sidney and Geordie investigate, they discover both incidents are related to illegal homosexual activity, revealing deep local and legal prejudices.

Sidney and Geordie are invited to Straight 8's Jazz Club in London, owned by the father of Jennifer's boyfriend.

Geordie is shot while he and Sidney investigate the shooting of a policeman. Sidney is shunned by the senior officer in charge when he finds a connection between the two shootings. Sidney's war flashbacks, Amanda's impending marriage, and Sidney's deception of Hildegard leave his private life in tatters.

### Series 2 (2016)

Sidney is accused of sexual assault by the father of 15-year-old Abigail Redmond, citing the evidence of her unseen diary. Geordie and Sidney find her body at a photographer's studio. Sidney discovers Abigail was pregnant, and that his superiors in the church were hiding a secret – Sam Milburn, a fellow vicar with a dark past.

The apparent suicide of a daredevil lecturer, fallen from a spire of King's College chapel, leads Geordie and Sidney into the world of Soviet spies. Sidney knows the spire cannot be climbed alone.

Amanda, unhappy with Guy, returns to Grantchester and finds Sidney has a new girlfriend, Margaret.

Margaret's statement about Geordie's state of mind causes Sidney to doubt his friend's innocence. Sidney is present at Gary's hanging; Geordie's testimony at the trial and Sidney's inability to stop the unjust execution drive him to drink.

The events of the previous months and his broken friendship with Geordie prey heavily on Sidney. Sam Milburn, the disgraced vicar who had molested Abigail, returns to ask Sidney for forgiveness, and Abigail's father threatens to kill him. When blood is found on the girl's gravestone and Milburn disappears, Sidney seeks Geordie's help to find him. Pregnant Amanda, unable to accept the future before her, leaves Guy and is disowned by her father; she turns to Sidney again for solace, and Sidney makes a choice that may alter his standing with the Church.

### Series 3 (2017)

Sidney receives a dead crow and a series of anonymous phone calls. Geordie calls Sidney to see the body of a respected doctor found dead in the church, together with a dead crow. A connection between Sidney and the doctor is the funeral he conducted of a matron three months earlier. Amanda's husband, Guy, wishes to see his baby daughter, and Sidney ponders his relationship with her.

While playing cricket for the local cricket side, Sidney and Geordie find racism rearing its ugly head against Pakistani batsman, Zafar Ali. Sidney discovers Geordie's affair with his secretary, placing him in a dilemma with Geordie's wife.

Geordie continues his affair with Margaret, Leonard proposes to Hilary, and Sidney finally gives in to his feelings for Amanda.

Sidney cannot reconcile his love for Amanda with his faith. Sidney makes a decision to make time to think.

Sidney leaves his clerical collar behind and hitchhikes across the country to find Ronnie, Mrs Maguire's husband, at a Romany camp and recover the money he had taken. Geordie's wife throws him out of their home. Sidney discovers Ronnie has another family and news of this and the money goes through the camp. Amanda gives Sidney an ultimatum.

It's September 1955 and Sidney has lost his faith in the church and writes a resignation letter. Geordie's behaviour grows more and more unstable as he wrestles with family problems and violently takes it out on a suspect, a troubled friend of Sidney's. As the vicar grows closer to the truth about the missing child, he is forced to choose between his love for Amanda and his faith when he realises the community needs him more than ever.

### Series 4 (2019)

It's 1956 and with Amanda long gone, Sidney's life now revolves around the church services and the interminable meetings of the Parochial Council and their plans for a village fete. He yearns for some excitement, and Geordie has noticed that Sidney's devil-may-care attitude feels increasingly like a death wish. Sidney Chambers attends a talk by the Reverend Nathaniel Todd, a key part of the Civil Rights Movement in the USA.

Sidney discovers he was the last person to see a woman alive during a drunken night. While he struggles to remember what happened, Geordie becomes concerned for his friend's troubled state of mind. Sidney reconnects and falls for the woman involved in the Civil Rights Movement. However, Sidney chooses the impossible and plans to emigrate.