This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.
Back in 1986, Peter Davison was arguably the most recognisable face on British television. He’d finished his first run as vet Tristan Farnon in the original All Creatures Great and Small, with audiences often hitting the 20 million mark, and had followed this up with a popular run as the fifth Doctor to emerge from the Tardis.
What, then, drew him to the relatively offbeat role of idealistic young doctor Stephen Daker, arriving to join a medical centre based at the fictional Lowlands University – a place described in the very first episode as “a very long way from anywhere”?
“It was the first script I had where I didn’t want to change a word,” Davison reflects today of A Very Peculiar Practice, which celebrates its 40th birthday this week with a rerun on BBC Four, accompanied by a fresh introduction from writer Andrew Davies, now 89 and still working very hard.
Peculiar Practice remains one of a very few original works penned by the man who would become king of the period novel TV adaptation, and Davison adds: “With All Creatures and Doctor Who, you’d always fiddle with the script, but with Andrew’s scripts, you didn’t want to.”
Thus Davison signed up for a surreal comedy-drama inspired by the writer’s own life. Davies had been a lecturer at the University of Warwick; in fact, he was still employed there when he was first commissioned to write a drama for the BBC – one he decided had “run out of steam” and so failed to deliver. When the broadcaster, quite reasonably, asked for its money back, Davies realised he’d spent it all and would have to come up with something else instead; Peculiar Practice was born.
As well as the script, Davison was charmed by his castmates and the characters they played. As bisexual arch-feminist doctor Rose Marie, Barbara Flynn (now in Beyond Paradise) was unafraid to use her feminine wiles, while David Troughton (now Tony in The Archers) played swivel-eyed Bob Buzzard, always intent on a self-serving scheme. Davies even created someone called Ron Rust (played by Joe Melia), who owed the BBC £17,000 and needed to come up with a script to pay it back.
Davison chuckles: “I was very much the straight man, surrounded by these lunatics. I think I represented the bewildered audience, and I was very happy to do that. We had a tremendous time making it.”
“Bewildered” is the word to describe viewers’ reaction. Between topics like student protests and overseas investment into higher education, Davies wove in elements like two nuns whose presence was never explained. Davison reveals: “Andrew said wherever he went there were always two nuns, so David [Tucker, director] added them in.”
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Still considered one of the BBC’s best dramas, A Very Peculiar Practice was immediately a critical triumph and, gradually, a popular hit. Davison still recalls the marked difference between filming series one and two in locations including Keele and Birmingham Universities. “In the original series, none of the students knew what was going on. By the time we returned, they loved it and were all volunteering to be extras.”
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Andrew Davies introduces A Very Peculiar Practice on Wednesday 20 May at 10pm on BBC Four and iPlayer.
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