Grace secured the part of the flamboyant aesthete Anthony Blanche in Brideshead Revisited, which filmed off and on from 1979 to 1981. Following the success of Brideshead Revisited on television, he played Richard II at the Young Vic in 1981, and Mozart in Amadeus with Frank Finlay at Her Majesty's Theatre in 1982. He then began working in operetta, playing Koko in The Mikado and Joseph Porter in HMS Pinafore for Sadler's Wells Opera in repertoire from 1982-1986.
Grace was Harry Hamilton-Paul in the film Heat and Dust (1983). It was around this time that took the role of Robert de Rainault, the Sheriff of Nottingham, in ITV's Robin of Sherwood (1983-1986).
Grace's theatre work in the late 1980s and early 1990s included Jenkins' Ear by Dusty Hughes at the Royal Court in 1986, Bernstein's Candide (Old Vic/Scottish Opera/BBC) in 1988-89 and The Mystery of Irma Vep at the Haymarket Theatre, Leicester (1990), which transferred to the Ambassadors Theatre. He played Cole Porter in A Swell Party at the Vaudeville in 1991-92 and appeared in Ken Russell's production of Princess Ida for ENO at the Coliseum Theatre in 1992.
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