This is when the All Creatures Great and Small Christmas Special 2023 will air and how to watch it

Entitled On a Wing and a Prayer, the Christmas 2023 episode will be broadcast on Thursday, December 21, at 9pm in the UK on Channel 5 and My5.

This Christmas, James is miles away from Darrowby at the RAF training base. An emotional phone call with a very pregnant Helen makes him determined to get back to her, but he does not have many options and the RAF mascot, Georgie, needs his help. James struggles to do the right thing. Will he find his way home in time for Christmas?

Meanwhile, Mrs Hall prepares a community Christmas celebration in Darrowby, while Siegfried and Carmody (James Anthony-Rose) argue over who will be Father Christmas this year. Carmody is welcomed by Darrowby and finds himself enjoying it. James learns a very important lesson and is rewarded with a surprise.

Filmed in the Yorkshire Dales over the summer, season four picked up in the spring of 1940, with James and Helen wondering when might be the right time to start a family, not knowing whether or not James would be called up to serve in the RAF.

The Second World War has brought changes that affect everyone in Skeldale House. The absence of Tristan Farnon (Callum Woodhouse) is felt by all, but especially by Siegfried (Samuel West), as he attempts to hold the growing household, and himself, together.

Helen (Rachel Shenton) is now pregnant and James (Nicholas Ralph) has been called up to serve, and is undergoing training miles away from her. Mrs Hall (Anna Madeley) has decided not to join Gerald in the Lake District, so that she can help support Helen and Siegfried.

Filming took place in the Yorkshire Dales from March to July this year, centred around Grassington, which is used for Darrowby and the front exterior of Skeldale House, the vets’ practice and home in All Creatures Great and Small. The Christmas episode was filmed on location in Grassington in mid-June, in swelteringly hot conditions. Fans on the lookout for signs of a new baby reported that areas surrounding James and Helen were screened off from view.

James Herriot is the pen name of James Alfred Wight, a veterinary surgeon who graduated from Glasgow Veterinary College at the age of 23 and headed to a veterinary practice in Thirsk, Yorkshire, in 1940, where he fell in love with the Dales and the woman he would marry, Joan Danbury. She later encouraged Wight to write the stories based on his own adventures and James Herriot quickly became one of Britain’s best-loved authors.

This Christmas Channel 5 will also show a one-off hour-long special called All Creatures Great and Small Meets The Yorkshire Vet, date to be confirmed.

From BAFTA and Golden Globe-winning production company Playground, series four of All Creatures Great and Small will air in the US in early 2024, beginning on January 7. In the UK last year’s series three averaged 3.8 million viewers, with Channel 5 the most popular terrestrial UK channel while it was on air.

All Creatures Great and Small series four episodes 1-6 are available for catch up on My5.