ITV's most successful returning new drama series

Filming has concluded on the seventh season of the long-running Brighton-based ITV detective series Grace.

The new episodes will be shown next spring, starring series regulars John Simm (as Detective Superintendent Roy Grace), Richie Campbell (as DS Glenn Branson) and Zoë Tapper (as Cleo Morey).

Peter James, author of the Grace novels on which the series is based, is thrilled at the series’ on-going success. The series is currently ITV's most successful returning new drama series.

The number of episodes has now overtaken the number of Roy Grace novels that Peter has written. The four new episodes include three stand-alones based on ideas by Peter – Dead By Design, Dead On Arrival and When You Are Dead, plus one episode based on an existing Roy Grace novel, Picture You Dead.

“I gave ITV a whole list of ideas and they picked the ones they wanted,” Peter said: “They are all ideas that I was planning to write as Grace novels but because they have caught up and gone ahead with the episodes, they are using the ideas that I have given them, and the whole process to make the drama will almost be in reverse. I will write the novel afterwards.

“But I will probably write the novel very differently. It's a very different process. The length of a script is about 20,000 words whereas a book is about 180,000 words. The script is just a fraction of the book. An enormous amount is taken out of the book for a script.

“But also it's a very different process. With the series you are very much more restricted. In a novel, if I wanted to, I could have a train crash or a hotel collapse or I could have two planes fall out of the sky but for a series they would be thinking ‘Could you not just have somebody fall off a bicycle? That would be a lot cheaper!’ Peter jokes. “That would be very much an extreme but the point is that when you're writing, you're not constrained. You can have whatever you want. You can even have a hundred-car pile-up.

“So I gave them a couple of hundred words for various ideas and I then worked closely with them. They use different writers to keep each episode fresh. I get sent a very early draft and I give them my input and I just try to keep the flavour of Grace. The most important thing is to keep the characters and not to have them do anything stupid that they would not do, and the great thing is that ITV are very respectful of that.”

The season which has just finished filming is season seven: “I originally thought wouldn't it be great if they made just one episode and now they're on about 26 or 27, and they are talking about the series continuing. I'm over the moon, and it's so interesting to get different feedback. You get people saying ‘I love the series’ and you get people saying ‘I love the books.’”

Peter has always been closely involved with the making of the episodes. He and his wife Lara have even been extras on occasion.

“I couldn't be happier with the whole thing. Grace is playing in about 30 countries now. It's a dream come true. When I started, my absolute dream would be a series that was nearly as successful as Morse, and I think we're getting there. I do suffer from imposter syndrome. I always think when I finish a book that I've got away with it and that I will be found out with the next one, but it has just kept going and it is great that it's now ITV’s most successful returning new drama series.”