Meet the suave new vicar replacing Tom Brittney in Grantchester

First of all, let’s get the bad news out of the way: Grantchester’s Tom Brittney is officially hanging up his vicar’s cloak. Sob! Now, the good news. There’s a brand-new vicar on the scene and he's far more suave than we'd anticipated.

The third vicar the English village has had in a decade (remember James Norton?), Grantchester’s newest arrival goes by the name of Rishi Nair, or Alphy Kotteram as he’ll be known in the series. And it seems he’s about to seriously shake things up.

Here’s everything we know about Grantchester’s newest arrival…

Who is Rishi Nair?

The 33-year-old actor is best known for his role as lawyer Sami Maalik in Channel 4’s Hollyoaks. You might also have seen him in the ITVX horror comedy Count Abdulla. He made his TV debut in 2015 with appearances in episodes of BBC One’s Silent Witness and New Tricks.

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Who is Rishi Nair playing in Grantchester?

Rishi will play new vicar Alphy Kotteram, who ends up working with Robson Green’s Detective Inspector Geordie Keating when an intruder breaks into the vicarage. However, Rishi has revealed that their first encounter doesn’t exactly go as smoothly as one might hope.

“[Alphy] is anti-police. He has this kind of perception about the institution. Growing up as a brown man in the ‘40s and ‘50s in Britain, his experience with the police would have been very different to the previous two vicars,” Rishi told the Radio Times.

ITV

“So, he has this kind of perception about them, and he has this personality trait that anyone that abuses their power, or anyone in a position of power that abuses that, he always stands up to that morally.”

"And Geordie’s first interaction with Alphy is he’s come to arrest him. He thinks that he's broken into the vicarage and he's stealing.”

Rishi has also revealed that ahead of taking on the role, he asked Brittney for some pearls of wisdom. So was his advice useful?

“Tom told me how to deal with Robson when he’s hungry,” Rishi revealed.

“Make sure he gets food, make sure he gets a nice big salad with his lunch because he likes his salads. He needs coffees in the morning to keep him awake.”

When will Rishi Nair arrive on our screens?

We’ll have to wait until episode three for his official arrival. That means that episode two (airing on Wednesday 15^th January), in which Tom Brittney will depart, is going to be an emotional one. Brace yourselves!