Filming passes half-way mark for latest Grace series in Brighton

Peter says ITV are looking at a possible broadcast date in January/February for the series currently being filmed – which will itself be a compliment. Previously it screened later in the year: “They want to get it on earlier in the year because of the bigger audiences in the mid-winter. I think it would depend what else is on the other side but in a way they are less worried about that these days because so many people watch on catch-up anyway.”

But it's a further sign of confidence in the series which has won millions of fans: “I was thinking they might make just a few films and it would do moderately well but it's now starting to do really well in America and it's already in 23 languages, dubbed or subtitled. It's doing really well in Germany.”

Filming on what will be season four goes through until the end of September with each episode taking six weeks – each week producing perhaps 15-20 minutes of film, a painstaking process which reflects Peter’s own huge attention the detail across all the novels which lie behind the huge TV success. The 19th Roy Grace novel will be out in September; currently TV episodes 9 to 12 are being filmed.

“And I think the actors are just gelling more and more as characters as they get more and more into their roles. I know John Simm (who plays Roy Grace) in particular is loving it. Somebody said once that once they started filming I would always actually have the actors in my mind when I was writing. I am now 160 pages into Roy Grace 20, and it is true. I have got John Simm in my mind as Grace; I have got Richie Campbell in my mind as DS Glenn Branson, and I have got Zoë Tapper in my mind as Cleo Morey.

“And I just find it's so easy now. I've become very good friends with John Simm and I've got his mannerisms in my mind, the way he moves in my mind, the way he thinks in my mind. Maybe for the first four or five films John Simm was becoming Roy Grace but now when I am writing, Roy Grace is becoming John Simm.”

Peter is hugely involved with the filming throughout. Every Friday he gets sent the filming from that week: “And we just drop everything to watch it and it's great.”

In the meantime Peter is working towards the next Roy Grace novel, number 19, Stop Them Dead which will be published on September 28: “This one is about the world of illegal dog breeding and importing that exploded during the lockdown.”

As organised crime, the illegal importing and breeding and stealing of dogs makes more than drugs do: “It is rife universally across the UK. People get mugged in the parks for their dogs. The RSPCA told me that there is a particular shade of blue French bulldog that a lot of celebs love where a breeding bitch could now fetch £100,000 pounds and puppies £25,000.”

But alongside the crime there is a very real extra danger: “A lot of dogs are brought illegally into the country with fake vaccination certificates and there is a real fear that these illegal imports could bring rabies into the country as it does in my book.”

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