All Creatures Great and Small Season 6: As filming begins in the Yorkshire Dales, Samuel West, Nicholas Ralph and Rachel Shenton share romance hopes - and fans note intriguing casting detail

The picture was posted alongside the first clapperboard of the season’s filming and a photo of the ACGAS Pet Wall (to the delight of many fans).

Samuel West, who plays Siegfried Farnon, also posted a photo of the clapperboard on his X account, as did Rachel Shenton (Helen Herriot) and Imogen Clawson (Jenny Alderson) on their Instagram accounts.

To celebrate the end of the broadcasting of season five of All Creatures Great and Small in the US, as well as to mark the start of the filming of season six, Masterpiece aired some intriguing interviews with the cast, asking them, before they had seen the S6 scripts, what they hoped new storylines might bring - and skirting around an issue that has been exercising many fans for several series: will there be romance between Siegfried and Mrs Hall?

Samuel West voiced his hopes that there might indeed be romance in store for Siegfried, although he did not mention Mrs Hall as the co-recipient. “I would like it if Siegfried could find love,” he said, adding: “I think he deserves it, and you’d see things coming out of him that you won’t see otherwise.”

Rachel Shenton also teased at potential romance for (if not between) Siegfried and Mrs Hall, saying: “I particularly hope Tristan is causing mischief, and Mrs Hall has a better time knowing everyone is safe and well. I also hope she finds romance. She deserves it, doesn’t she? I’m sure I’m with the viewers on that one.”

The prospect of James and Helen having more children was also addressed, with Nicholas Ralph saying: “If there was the pitter-patter of little feet once again … We’ll see about that.”

But it is the casting of a future child that has caused some fans to ask when series six, made by Playground, will actually be set.

It is well-known that the real James Herriot, Thirsk vet Alf Wight, had two children, Jim and Rosie. Eagle-eyed fans had earlier spotted two acting agency casting call adverts on social media seeking identical twin girls - one pair aged two and one pair aged three - for “an iconic North Yorkshire TV production”, adding that they “must have really good availability between Feb and June” - the exact filming window for most previous series of All Creatures.

This has led some fans to wonder if the storyline will jump forward from 1942 to around the end of the war, perhaps spring 1945 or 1946, when baby Jimmy will be a young boy of four or five, and a sister, presumably Rosie, would be two or three years old.

This would enable the storylines to progress beyond the end of the Second World War, and perhaps give the writers the chance to move some other storylines further along, too.

Without doubt, many fans will be hoping to see Mrs Hall and Siegfried still sitting beside each other on the Skeldale House sofa, but maybe, just maybe, holding hands. Might this happen in series six? Only time will tell.