All Creatures Great and Small Christmas Special: Nicholas Ralph, Anna Madeley and Callum Woodhouse talk behind-the-scenes friendship and food

This year’s ACGAS Christmas Special - called Comfort and Joy - is set in 1945, the first peace-time Christmas after the war. Mrs Hall (Anna Madeley) is determined to win the Drovers' darts competition - first prize, a fresh turkey. Then an old friend turns up on the doorstep, causing quite the stir.

Indeed, the return of Mrs Hall’s glamorous friend Dorothy (Maimie McCoy), who was romanced awkwardly by Siegfried in series one, could be an unpopular storyline among fans adamant that he and Mrs Audrey Hall will, sooner or later, get together.

Anna says: “In terms of having Maimie back, it was brilliant because she's wonderful. She's been off in Van der Valk and things.”

Mrs Hall is also delighted at Dorothy’s return. “Having her oldest, dearest friend rock up at the back door out of the blue is just extraordinary,” Anna says. “You always think about how hard it was, not having communication with one another, having to be patient and wait to find out how people are, and she's been in Malta, which was really heavily bombed.

“Mrs Hall's so excited about Christmas, she just leans into the fun and excitement of, ‘this could be good for everybody’, so we'll see where that takes them.”

Callum Woodhouse, who plays Tristan, and Nicholas Ralph, who plays James Herriot, warn that social media might explode.

Playing darts as a child might have given Anna sound preparation for Mrs Hall’s darts skills. “We had one rehearsal where I got every single dart in exactly the right place,” she says. “ The whole room went ‘phwhum’, which was great, but we never got it on shot.”

Nicholas says: “But it was so good, because then, when we were rolling, we knew how we would react.”

Callum adds: “We didn't have to act it at all.”

Chipping in and finishing each other’s sentences is second nature to this close band of main cast members, who have now spent six years working together for several months a season (All Creatures has mostly been made between February and June in the Yorkshire Dales, on location and at the studios outside Harrogate).

A publicity campaign this year saw the stars recreate moments from previous series. Callum says: “Me and Nick recreated the end of episode two, where we both look around the wall. So there's basically a shot of then and now, and it's like, oh yeah, we have changed quite a bit.”

Nicholas says: “I think, year on year, as James has, I have hopefully grown as a person, as an actor, and everything in-between. James certainly has over the years, and it's really fun to go back now and watch series one. I mean, he's just so on the back foot and so green.”

Anna says: “Not many people get to do this, do they? Having a show that runs this long is extraordinary and so special.

“Having a chance to revisit and come back and allow the characters to grow - which is a completely different challenge again as an actor - but also have our relationships with each other grow. And the crew - so many of the crew are still with us from the very beginning.”

With Helen unwell, it falls to James to produce the Darrowby Nativity. “Andy (Hay), who directed those episodes, is just amazing,” Nicholas says. “He just let the camera roll. He just went, ‘Right, you know who you all are. The costumes are in there somewhere, your props are over there somewhere - go’. And that literally was how we filmed it. And then little happy accidents would come out of that. Like the wrong person, character, would pick the wrong prop. Then you add the animals into it as well. It was so fun.”

The Nativity gives the opportunity for young stars to shine, especially little Jimmy, played by Thomas Riches, and Rosie, played by three-year-old Isabella Ward, from Halifax.

Isabella’s mum, Jodie, says: “I have to give huge credit to the director who got the very best out of Isabella playing little Rosie. Even trusting and giving her lines to say at only three years old.

"Isabella loved her on-screen mummy, Rachel Shenton. They were so natural together on-set, and we even got to meet her tiny new arrival after filming one day."

The Nativity sees James try his hand at authorship, and there are a couple of nods that will delight fans of the real James Herriot, Thirsk vet Alf Wight, who began to write stories inspired by his life and work in the late 1960s, encouraged by his wife, Joan. His first book, If Only They Could Talk, was published in 1970, and the series has now sold more than 60 million copies.

“I think it was handled very well, very tactfully, between James and Tristan,” Nicholas says. “It wasn't laid on too thickly.

“For fans of All Creatures and the books, and the history of the whole franchise, I guess, it will be a lovely moment for them. And it was for me as well, to play.”

Another storyline handled with sensitivity has been Tristan’s return from war. Christmas sees him struggle to celebrate, despite a new romance with Charlotte (Gaia Wise).

Callum says: “Luckily for Tristan, he's currently with a really amazing partner who completely understands him.”

Gaia joined the cast in series six as Charlotte Beauvoir, who is now increasingly part of the Skeldale wider household. She looks uncannily like her mother, Emma Thompson.

Callum says: “It weirdly is like occasional flashes where you're like, oh gosh, that's Emma. I think Sam experienced it a lot.

“He was saying that it was like he suddenly felt transported back 30, or however many years ago it was, to being on set with Emma - like a deja vu sort of moment.” (Samuel West and Emma Thompson co-starred in Howards End in 1992 and Carrington in 1995).

“We all went out for a big family dinner while Rachel was back, and Gaia came along, and Patricia as well. So it was sort of like a slightly extended family dinner and it was just glorious.

“She's been an amazing addition. I think she's just slotted right into the world really, really well.”

There was much comfort and joy in the return of Rachel Shenton, whose maternity leave saw her absent for the latter part of series six, making it back for the filming of the Christmas Special in June.

“We missed her, so much so,” says Nicholas. “And also what a trouper.”

Anna adds: “She was in pyjamas all the time. It was lovely - a cosy Christmas.”

In Darrowby, the first post-war Christmas brings pressures of its own. “People want this Christmas to be the best Christmas ever, because of what has just happened. But of course things just don't go that way,” says Nicholas. “But still full of that warm, lovely Christmas feeling and joy - and lots of lovely little things as well, like Sam West actually had his kids down and they were part of the Nativity, so it was a little bit of art imitating life.”

Firmly a staple of the British festive TV schedule, just like the rest of us, the cast members like to settle down to watch it with family.

“Last year I watched it with my girlfriend's family but I'll be with my parents this year and we'll watch the Christmas special,” Callum says, adding that watching Morecambe and Wise Christmas specials has long been a tradition. “So now to be in one of my own six years running is really amazing, and it's definitely a big fixture in the family home at Christmas time.”

Anna says: “You get letters from people talking about what the show's meant to them and in a lot of cases how it's helped them out through hard times or difficult times. Christmas can be a mix of things, can't it? It's a real privilege to be in people's homes and hopefully bring them some joy.”

Nicholas adds: “You really know how special it is to people because every year, year on year, after the first episode is aired, people ask me, if they bump into me or my parents, ‘And is there a Christmas episode this year?’”

“So people clearly, clearly, absolutely love it. It's amazing to be part of that.”

Anna says: “The whole darts game is all about wanting to be able to have a really really good Christmas and have fun, and I just I love that sense of, everyone's in the pub together having a drink, trying in whatever way to have a good time and being present, and that community can hold everybody.

“When Tris helps Maggie out, she's there being brilliant trying to make sure everyone has a good Christmas still, even though hers is not great. And she has that community to help support her through that as well. So it is about that, about comforting one another and taking joy where you have it.”

Tricki Woo is getting on, although there has been a change of cast, with the original Tricki, Derek, now retired, and Dora now playing the role. Callum jokes: “He's the most distinguished member of the cast. He's on track to get his knighthood soon, I would say. He's ageing like a fine wine.

Unless the Skeldale team wins the darts competition, it’s Murkey on the menu for Christmas dinner, a real wartime recipe found by the team that makes the delicious looking food seen on All Creatures.

“It's sausage meat and stuffing and then you arrange your parsnips as the legs and coat it in the bacon strips,” Anna says. “They are brilliant. The research they do on all those things is amazing. Bethany, who does a lot of the cooking behind the scenes, is a genius at it.”

Fans visit All Creatures locations from across the world, and Nicholas tells of an encounter with a mini-van of fans while filming in driving rain at Yockenthwaite Farm, which is used for Heston Grange.

“These people all pile off,” he says. “And they're like, ‘Hey, we love you two guys, we love you guys’.

“And then they file back onto the bus because it's raining sideways, so I imagine that's them going to go off. What they do is they go on the bus and they crank up the opening theme tune to All Creatures Great and Small, because they've clearly been listening to it as they've been driving around the Dales. They crank it up full blast, they pile off again and start dancing in the rain. It was so cool and just surreal and mad to see – 14 Brazilians all dancing in the rain in the middle of Yorkshire in the sticks.”

Personal friendship is a focus for this episode. Anna says: “It always is but there's a poignancy to it, I think, this Christmas, of having everybody there and the times that have been really tough and I think that makes the joy even bigger, where they can find joy with each other. I still think that's in Mrs Hall's veins definitely, that's what matters, isn't it? It's your community and how you look after each other and how you bring people together and someone like Mrs Hall, I think that's her reason to be. So it's very much so this Christmas, wanting that to be a warm, welcoming place for everybody.

With Christmas on its way, they each have their own ways of finding the festive spirit.

Callum says: “Christmas movies. Harry Potter films are really Christmassy for me. So I will do all of the Harry Potters over the month of December, along with Die Hard, which is definitely a Christmas film, and you know, Elf, Love Actually, and the other one, The Holiday.”

Anna says her children make sure she gets into the spirit: “They sort of do a slow burn, make me get excited about it because there's no choice but to.”

Nicholas says: “Christmas tunes. I wait until December 1st, personally. And Christmas films, definitely, and also Christmas lights, just when you're out and about, wherever you are. I'm in London and the streets … there's some wonderful, wonderful decorations. You do feel really Christmassy when you do that.”

Anna says: “Actually what I did as a kid, we'd always go on the double decker down, like Oxford Street, Regent Street, and go and see all the lights in town. Selfridges’ windows, all those sorts of things.”

The All Creatures Great and Small Christmas Special is on Christmas Eve at 9pm on 5 and My5.