All Creatures wraps deadly seriousness in cosy period drama

All Creatures Great and Small ★★★½ Saturday, ABC, 7.30pm

The late great Terry Pratchett once wrote, in his pithy yet whimsical way, that a vet often has to work under much greater pressure than a regular doctor. When a human dies, he noted, it could always be written off as “god’s will”, but the loss of livestock means the loss of money, and your customers are unlikely to be so sentimental.

That is, indeed, the pressure that the heroes of All Creatures Great and Small are operating under: the veterinary practice in a Yorkshire village in the late 1930s tends to the animals of surrounding farms, and therefore is responsible for far more than people’s beloved pets. If the vets stuff up, they could cripple someone’s livelihood. It is serious stuff.

That’s the beauty of the show: such deadly seriousness encased in warm and cosy period drama. Like its spiritual sibling Call the Midwife, All Creatures depicts charming small-town folk, tracking their quirks, their relationships, their squabbles, their adorable eccentricities – all the while keeping at its heart the stuff of life and death. The midwives of Nonnatus House deal with human entries to or departures from this world, while the Yorkshire vets handle other species, but that feeling of something primal, of something fundamental to existence being wrestled with, is still present. It’s what gives power and beauty to a show that might otherwise be nothing more than a nice soothing bit of fluff.

This is not to diminish the fact that the show is, for much of the time, a light and twinkle-eyed ramble through the oft-comical travails of a country vet. The current series is the second time the semi-autobiographical stories of James Herriot (pen name of Alf Wight) have been adapted for television. The first series, which ran from 1978 to 1990 and starred Robert Hardy, Peter Davison and Christopher Timothy, is beloved in the annals of British TV, so it was a brave bunch of creatives who decided to have another stab at an adaptation. That the newcomer succeeds is a tribute to its attention to detail and writing that foregrounds character above all – and perhaps also to a human longing for reminders of simplicity, decency and the warmth of community.

Nicholas Ralph as James Herriot in All Creatures Great and Small.

The main focus of the show is young James Herriot (Nicholas Ralph), a timid Scottish vet who arrives in the Yorkshire Dales to take up his first job in the practice of Siegfried Farnon (a magnificent Samuel West), an intimidating boss whose golden heart is hidden behind a lordly, often harsh exterior. Siegfried’s younger brother Tristan (Callum Woodhouse), a similarly good-hearted but frequently feckless trouble-magnet, and the steadfast and wise housekeeper Mrs Hall (Anna Madeley) round out the household.

Herriot is forced to juggle the difficulty of proving his worth to Siegfried, the treatment of the wide range of species and ailments that a vet must face, the challenge of winning over the locals, who value their animals highly and naturally distrust outsiders, and the complications of falling in love with Helen (Rachel Shenton), a farmer’s daughter with a winning way about her.

As series three – showing now on ABC – begins, much of the hard work of entrenching himself in the community has been done. James is trusted by both his boss and the villagers, has won Helen’s heart, and is preparing for his wedding. But there is much still to worry about, not least the fact that World War II is looming, giving every young man in Britain some pretty big decisions to make – even a newlywed with a thriving vet practice.

But beyond the big picture stuff, there is still the everyday business of saving four-legged lives – or sometimes, not saving them. That’s the kicker in All Creatures Great and Small: for every gorgeously heartwarming scene of animals bouncing back to their best, there is a tragedy lurking in the near future. It’s that unavoidable tension in the life of a vet that grants this lovely, gentle, sweet saga its emotional heft.

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