All Creatures Great and Small

All Creatures Great and Small
Format	Comedy/Drama
Created by	Bill Sellars
Written by	James Herriot
Directed by	Peter Grimwade
Starring	Christopher Timothy Robert Hardy Peter Davison Carol Drinkwater Margaretta Scott Lynda Bellingham Mary Hignett
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of episodes	91 (List of episodes)
Production
Producer(s)	Bill Sellars
Running time	50 mins
Broadcast
Original channel	BBC1
Original run	1978 – 1990

All Creatures Great and Small is a popular television series, based on the books of the British veterinary surgeon Alf Wight, who wrote under the pseudonym James Herriot.

Background

In 1978, the BBC tasked producer Bill Sellars with the creation of a television series from Herriot's first two novels, If Only They Could Talk and It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet, using the title of the 1975 film adaptation All Creatures Great and Small.

Cast

The leading role was taken by actor Christopher Timothy, after Simon Ward (who had played the part in the 1975 film), John Alderton (who had replaced Ward in the sequel, It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet) and Richard Beckinsale all turned it down. Siegfried Farnon was played by Robert Hardy. Tristan was played by Peter Davison. Helen was played by Carol Drinkwater in the first three series and two specials, then by Lynda Bellingham in the final four series. Mary Hignett played housekeeper Mrs Hall in the first three series, and Margaretta Scott appeared as the recurring aristocratic dog-owner Mrs Pumphrey.

With the amount of screen time to fill, the series quickly became much more of an ensemble show, developing all the characters considerably. In particular, the role of Tristan was significantly increased: partly because Christopher Timothy suffered a car accident part-way through the first series and so was restricted to studio scenes (in at least one episode, he can be seen having visible difficulty walking about the surgery), which required that all the scenes involving location filming be rewritten and given to Davison.

History

The programme initially ran for three series, but broke off (in 1980) at the stage where the characters were drawn into the Second World War. This completed the adaptation of all the novels which Alf Wight had written up to that point.

Two 90 minute specials were subsequently made in 1983 and 1985, set after the war; and then in 1988 the programme was revived, when the BBC was able to persuade Alf Wight to allow new scripts to be written by other writers, and ran for four more series (taking the characters into the early 1950s).

In the revived series, Lynda Bellingham took over the role of Helen (following Carol Drinkwater's decision not to continue in the part, as a result of the ending of a real-life romance with Christopher Timothy), and Judy Wilson briefly played a new housekeeper, Mrs Greenlaw, as Mary Hignett had died shortly after the end of the third series. The Darrowby practice added a young Scottish vet with a liking for wildlife, in the person of John McGlynn, playing Calum Buchanan (based upon Herriot's real-life assistant Brian Nettleton), as a former classmate of Tristan's. The Herriot children, who had been introduced in the two specials, became recurring characters, with Jimmy played by Oliver Wilson and Rosie by Rebecca Smith.

The revived series gradually became a soap opera based around the development of the central characters - particularly after the introduction of Callum and Deirdre, with their romance and subsequent marriage - and it mainly centred upon the activities inside Skeldale House at Darrowby, rather than being a series about a veterinary practice. For the final series, all of the new characters were dropped (including Callum, Deirdre, Mrs Greenlaw and the Herriot children), and the series returned to its 1970s roots, focusing once more on the animals. The final broadcast was another Christmas special, in 1990.

In 2007, an unfilmed script by the show's script editor Johnny Byrne was recovered and presented to the BBC as a possible Christmas reunion episode, but the BBC did not commission it. Peter Davison joked, "Maybe they just thought we were too decrepit, I don't know!"^[1]

Locations

The programme was filmed in North Yorkshire, with some scenes shot at Bolton Castle and in the village of Askrigg, which doubled for the fictional Darrowby. Indoor scenes were shot at the BBC's Pebble Mill studios in Birmingham.

For the first three series, up until the two Christmas specials of 1983 and 1985, most interior scenes were recorded on video and edited together with filmed exterior shots, as was common practice in British television at the time.

The original set of the interior of the Skeldale House surgery is now located at the Richmondshire Museum in Richmond, North Yorkshire, and is open to the public.

Theme

The theme tune "Piano Parchment", and the incidental music used in the show, was by Johnny Pearson.

DVD

All seven series - the seventh including the 1990 Christmas special 'Brotherly Love' - and the 1983 and 1985 Christmas specials have been released on Region 2 and 4 PAL DVDs and on Region 1 NTSC.

Universal Pictures UK will be releasing a complete boxset of Series 1 to 7 including the three Christmas specials, this is expected to be available from most retailers on November 2nd 2009.

Relation to Alf Wight's life

Whereas the first three series were adapted directly from real-life incidents in Alf Wight's veterinary practice in Thirsk, Yorkshire, as fictionalised in his novels, new writers were brought in for Series 4 to 7 (when the production of new novels could not keep up with the popularity of the tv show) and only a few of those latter stories came from the writings of James Herriot.

Cast

• James Herriot — Christopher Timothy
• Siegfried Farnon — Robert Hardy
• Tristan Farnon — Peter Davison (series 1-5, 7)
• Helen Herriot — Carol Drinkwater (series 1-3 & specials) & Lynda Bellingham (series 4-7)
• Calum Buchanan — John McGlynn (series 4-6)
• Mrs Edna Hall — Mary Hignett (series 1-3)
• Mrs Greenlaw — Judy Wilson (series 4-5)
• Mrs Alton — Jean Heywood (series 7)
• Mrs Pumphrey — Margaretta Scott
• Hodgekin — Teddy Turner
• Jimmy Herriot — Oliver Wilson (1985 special - series 5) & Paul Lyon (series 7)
• Rosie Herriot — Rebecca Smith (1985 special - series 5) & Alison Lewis (series 7)

TV episodes

References

External links

• "All Creatures Great and Small TV series title sequence" (RealAudio). Cult TV. BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/classic/titles/allcreatures.shtml. 
• TV.com entry for television series
• All Creatures Great and Small at the Internet Movie Database