All Creatures Great and Small Is the Calm Treat We Need Right Now
At one point in the first season of All Creatures Great and Small, the late acting legend Diana Rigg asks the question: “We all need the odd treat or life becomes a little dull, don't you think?"
This week, life certainly hasn’t been dull. Between witnessing the surging COVID-19 crisis, which killed a record number of Americans on Thursday, and the violent siege of the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, my cortisol levels have perhaps never been higher. But a new period drama about a young veterinarian named James Herriot might just be the calming odd treat we need right now.
Based on a much-loved book series by Alf Wight, the show follows Herriot as he joins the fictionalized farming community of Darrowby Village and begins caring for its animals, and earning the respect of his eccentric, but ultimately kind-hearted employer, Siegfried Farnon. It’s a gentle series and a beautiful one with stunning landscapes and impeccable costuming; there are slow-burning romances and sweet puppies and surprise birthday parties.
All Creatures Great and Small is escapism set in the 1930s English countryside, and frankly, it’s a privilege to even be able to take a moment to think about something other than the news, but the show isn’t a fantasy. It’s a story rooted in reality because it’s based on the lives and experiences of real people; Alf Wight was James Herriot.
And with that truth comes a bit of melancholy that helps to ground the show: a mother estranged from her son hopes to reconnect; a family’s financial future hangs on the fate of an ill cow; a hard-of-hearing WWI veteran’s dog doesn’t have enough to eat. That poignant balance between joy and hardship is what makes it watchable in our modern reality of tragedy and of chaos.
“It's 1937 and times, they were tougher then,” Rachel Shenton, who plays Helen in the series, tells me over the phone, just as the UK enters lockdown once again. “You relied on togetherness as the village and the community of the people. And I think that's never felt more relevant than now.”
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