This is when the All Creatures Great and Small Christmas special 2022 will air

Promising to be a highlight of the UK holiday TV schedule, the festive episode will bring to a close series three of the popular adaptation, launched in 2020, of James Herriot’s best-selling veterinary novels. A signature blend of humour and poignancy, wrapped in a snow-sprinkled, nostalgia-laden Yorkshire Dales setting, saw last year’s All Creatures Great and Small Christmas special pull in 4.75 million UK viewers.

Nicholas Ralph, who plays James Herriot, said he hoped this year’s Christmas episode would “bring the same uplifting, hopeful, warm, funny, but also touching drama” as the previous two yuletide outings.

Filmed in Yorkshire during July’s summer heatwave, the story is set in Christmas 1939, with the world at war and the folk of Darrowby coming to terms with new regulations, conditions and separations.

Rachel Shenton returns as newly married Helen Herriot, with Samuel West as mercurial head vet Siegfried Farnon, Anna Madeley as Mrs Hall the housekeeper, and Callum Woodhouse as Siegfried’s slowly maturing brother Tristan. Harrogate student Imogen Clawson plays Helen’s sister, Jenny, and there is a festive new role for Tony Pitts, who plays Mr Alderson.

Patricia Hodge is back as Mrs Pumphrey, this time with a new pet, a kitten in need of extra care at Pumphrey Manor (Tricki Woo looks on with mild interest).

A guest at Skeldale House comes in the form of a young refugee who brings mischief and wonder, and Siegfried is called upon to treat an injured racehorse, becoming embroiled in a compromising dilemma.

Mrs Hall bumps into Gerald at the market in Darrowby (Grassington looking wonderfully festive) and finds herself inviting him to a Skeldale House Christmas party that comes as news to all the other residents.

Lead writer Ben Vanstone and director Stewart Svaasand return for this year’s Christmas episode, produced by BAFTA-winning production company Playground (Howards End, Wolf Hall). Executive producer Melissa Gallant said: “We are delighted to be offering the audience one more trip back to the sanctuary of Darrowby before the year is out. An All Creatures Christmas special always aims to deliver uplifting celebration alongside the often painful reality of Christmas for many, and this year's episode is no exception.

“This is our first Christmas during wartime and we wanted to reflect something of the reality of war for our Skeldale family. Ben Vanstone cooks up his signature Christmas feast full of fun, festivity, community, romance, Father Christmas, tears, and of course a resurgence of Mrs Hall's excellent sausage rolls. We have all laughed and cried - a lot - making it and hope it will bring a little necessary joy and catharsis to the end of a challenging year for many.”

Never out of print, the James Herriot books have become a global cultural phenomenon with devoted fans around the world. They were written by Thirsk vet James Alfred Wight, who graduated from Glasgow Veterinary College and headed to the North Yorkshire town in 1940 where he fell in love with the Dales and the woman he would marry, Joan Danbury. With her encouragement, he later wrote the novels based on his own adventures.

All Creatures Great and Small is on Channel 5 on Friday, December 23, at 9pm.