Channel 5’s All Creatures Great and Small puts crude and rude TV to shame – Andrew Vine

Millions of others will feel likewise, and it’s easy to see why. Old-fashioned decency and kindness are at the heart of this show – as they were central to the stories by James Herriot on which it is based – and those are values in short supply on a lot of television.

I can’t be the only one fed up of self-proclaimed hard-hitting dramas that pivot on pathological cruelty, in which every other line of dialogue depends on swearing for its impact.

But it doesn’t have any impact because there’s so much of it. It’s boring, lazy and unimaginative, as well as being offensive to many who wouldn’t utter such language and don’t want it shoved down their throats in their own homes.

It’s become fashionable to suggest that entertainment has to have a hard, even cruel, edge to it. So comedians devote themselves to scoring political points, whilst neglecting the need to make audiences laugh, and dramas often take anguish or behaviour bordering on the sadistic as their central themes.

These things have their place, certainly, but surely shouldn’t be at the heart of everything. You only have to look at any of the soaps to see how an unrelieved diet of misery and nastiness has become the default position for an awful lot of drama.

Does anybody in charge stop and wonder if they might be a turn-off – quite literally – for large sections of the audience, who when confronted by this sort of stuff change channels.

No wonder that the reboot of All Creatures Great and Small is proving so popular, just as the original BBC series of the 1970s and 80s was. For my generation, it was the must-watch of weekend nights, along with Morecambe and Wise or The Two Ronnies.

As with many Yorkshire families, we knew the Dales settings well and there was often a sort of parlour game while the programme was on of spotting the location. That will get a reboot too as the series goes on.

The 70s and 80s were a period of strife, uncertainty and unemployment, and escaping into the world of a country vet 
for an hour was an antidote to that.

And here we are, 30 years later, with the same grim backdrop to a lot of life – albeit for different reasons – which means that we need that escapism to an earlier, kindlier age all over again.

The books by Alf Wight, the Thirsk vet who adopted the pen-name James Herriot and which inspired the series, were worldwide hits because of their good humour and warmth.

Those qualities never go out of fashion, and maybe they’re even more important to people now after months in which concern for others has been paramount.

And maybe All Creatures Great and Small has something more to offer Yorkshire than an hour of quality television, by prompting viewers to come and see for themselves where it was filmed, just as they did in the 80s.

The settings are, of course, majestic and after this roughest of years for our county’s tourist trade, an influx of visitors would be a boon. That has happened as the result of other Yorkshire-based series on Channel 5, which seems to have realised that it’s onto a winner by exploring our county and the lives of its people.

The Yorkshire Vet, Our Yorkshire Farm, featuring Amanda and Clive Owen, and The Yorkshire Steam Railway, about the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, have all been huge hits for the channel.

There’s a serious side to this. Our Yorkshire Farm raises awareness of the sheer hard graft that farming involves, and an appreciation of agriculture matters greatly, especially when so many urban residents are disconnected from where their food comes from.

And there’s no surprise in these programmes’ success. They all have their hearts in the right place – not through any artifice, but simply by honestly portraying the natures of the people they focus on.

The new director-general of the BBC, Tim Davie, started his job last week by promising that the Corporation would more accurately reflect the nature of Britain.

Well, he might take an hour out to watch All Creatures Great and Small and usefully reflect that its success says much about what the viewing public would like see more of.

Let’s hope so. And let’s hope it prompts producers of supposedly mainstream drama to turn down the dial on extremes of human cruelty and devote more thought to an audience that’s sick of having its nose rubbed in it.

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Thank you

James Mitchinson