OLIVER CROCKER on the original ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on December 15th 2024.

This week’s special guest is the film-maker, researcher, prolific podcaster, and author, OLIVER CROCKER who joins me to talk not about the long-running police drama THE BILL, about which he is something of an authority, but about another long-running drama from the 1970s and 1980s, the popular Yorkshire-set veterinary series ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL based upon the books by the author ALF WRIGHT who was better known by the pen name JAMES HERRIOT.

Starring CHRISTOPHER TIMOTHY, ROBERT HARDY, CAROL DRINKWATER, and PETER DAVISON, with the likes of JOHN McGLYNN and LINDA BELLINGHAM joining the cast for its revival, ALL CREATURES was a huge success across seven series, ninety episodes, and appeared in the BBC schedules for over a decade, making household names of all of its stars, with a popular combination of light comedy, heart-wrenching drama, and lots and lots of the kind of photogenic cute furry animals that had viewers tuning in in their millions.

OLIVER quite literally wrote the book on ALL CREATURES with his popular ALL MEMORIES GREAT AND SMALL, a collection of memories and production details about the making of a series which was so well loved that it has been successfully revived by CHANNEL FIVE for five series and counting, so I am very pleased to welcome him to VISION ON SOUND this week, to talk about this, and his TV career in general.

PLEASE NOTE - For Copyright reasons, musical content sometimes has to be removed for the podcast edition. All the spoken word content remains (mostly) as it was in the broadcast version. Hopefully this won't spoil your enjoyment of the show.