All Creatures Great and Small’s TV success was its Yorkshire authenticity – GP Taylor

It had everything you needed for a night in front of the TV. The glorious Yorkshire countryside and the beautiful village of Grassington are an excellent backdrop. This is something 3.3 million viewers agree with.

Our county does have a habit of looking beautiful on film, and the attention being given to our region by this TV series is most welcome. It can only do good in these difficult times.

I think the key to the success of the show isn’t just that it is filmed in Yorkshire. There is something magical about being transported back to an age when things were much simpler.

We did not have to endure rapes, murders and adultery in All Creatures. Nor was the vets’ house to be burned down by a psychopath. No, all we viewed was the revealing of relationships between the characters in an enthralling way.

What a refreshing change. I have lost count of the murders, crashes, suicides and catastrophes of Emmerdale with its forced multi-culturalism and outrageous plot lines.

The sad thing about All Creatures is that its natural home should have been the BBC. It would have fitted well in their schedule and been a perfect Sunday evening must watch.

Yet it emerges that this amazing programme was passed over by the BBC because it would not draw in the younger viewers. The BBC cannot yet understand that the beloved Millennials that they are constantly chasing do not see them as a go-to place for their viewing needs. Younger viewers are chilling with Netflix and YouTube and don’t look to traditional viewing platforms as their natural home.

More worryingly, it was even mentioned in The Times that All Creatures was passed over for being too white. I wonder why BBC commissioners fail to understand that 60 years ago in Yorkshire the action would have been pale and male. The obsession for colour blind casting is ruining British drama.

Before I am cancelled, no platformed or silenced, can I remind you that my first worldwide best-selling novel, Shadowmancer, had a black character as the hero? I made sure that even though the book was set in 1751, his presence was historically correct.

When a Hollywood film company tried to change him to a white person, I pulled the film back from them, such was my insistence on having a black actor play the part. No racism here...

What All Creatures has highlighted is the sad state of affairs at the BBC in particular and the media in general. The woke culture has flooded in to put historical programmes into a place where they just become absurd.

To appease the tokenists who insist that every programme must have a representative from every minority or sexual group in the cast, they are making programming ridiculous. Never more has there been a need to reclaim the truth. Britain is one of the world’s most liberal and accepting countries. Writers like myself do everything we can to promote inclusivity and diversity, but doing that has to have a genuine integrity.

That integrity cannot be sacrificed on the altar of tokenism. Post-war Yorkshire was predominately white, that is a fact. To portray it as any other would be a lie. Thankfully, the writers of the programme managed to bring in a black character for two episodes without it being incongruous to the setting.

Commissioners have to realise that you cannot force every historical programme to reflect the multicultural face of Britain in 2020. The London metropolitan bubble only extends to the edge of the M25. Beyond that, is a different world.

As a writer, I will always make sure that I can make sure my works are as multicultural as I can. That is why I felt it so important to have a black protagonist in my first book. That character was deeply researched to make him an historically accurate figure.

However, I do feel it is wrong for the BBC and other broadcasters to alter history for the sake of tokenism. Dr Who, Enola Holmes and many other films and programmes all fall foul of this. Producers are scared of being called racist.

It is fantastic to see more people from the BAME community working in the media and much needs to still be done to open the doors for even more. What the BBC and others should be concentrating on is encouraging young BAME people into the media to work as directors, producers and writers and not just giving them token acting parts to fulfil the woke quota.

It has to be realised that programmes such as All Creatures can still have integrity even though they have a majority white cast. It isn’t racist to honestly reflect Yorkshire how it was 60 years ago.

GP Taylor is a writer and broadcaster. He lives 
in Whitby.

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Thank you

James Mitchinson