A Very Peculiar Practice is a surreal black-comedy drama set in the health centre of a British university, produced by the BBC, which ran for two series in 1986 and 1988. The two series were followed by a 90-minute made-for-television film, A Very Polish Practice (1992), following some of the characters to a new setting in Poland.
It was written by Andrew Davies and was inspired by his experiences as a lecturer at the University of Warwick, and it has been interpreted as a commentary on contemporary trends in education. It was one of only two original television series that he wrote.
In 2010, The Guardian ranked the serial at number 5 in their list of "The Top 50 TV Dramas of All Time".
Storyline
The series is a black comedy with surreal elements about an idealistic young doctor, Stephen Daker (Peter Davison), joining a university medical centre staffed by an ill-assorted group of doctors. These include the bisexual, ultra-feminist Rose Marie (Barbara Flynn), scheming to advance her career; brash, unempathetic Bob Buzzard (David Troughton), with his latest get-rich-quick scheme; and their leader, the genial but decrepit Scot Jock McCannon (Graham Crowden), with his ever-present bottle of whisky. Stephen Daker's predecessor is said to have left in dubious circumstances.
A leitmotif is the commercialisation of higher education in Britain following the government cuts of the early 1980s, with the Vice-Chancellor Ernest Hemmingway (John Bird) trying to woo Japanese investors in the face of resistance from the academic old guard. Hugh Grant made one of his first television appearances as an evangelical preacher; Kathy Burke also had a bit part. In the second series, an American Vice-Chancellor, Jack Daniels (Michael J. Shannon), took over from Hemmingway, continuing the running joke of naming the VC after a famous American (although the whiskey distiller's name was Jack Daniel).
In the first series, Daker had a romance with a post-graduate policewoman, Lyn Turtle (Amanda Hillwood), after she rescued him from drowning in the swimming pool. In the second series Daker has been promoted to head of the centre, and falls in love with Polish academic Grete Grotowska (Joanna Kanska). Rose Marie also seeks romantic involvement with Grotowska, whilst at the same time sleeping with the VC Jack Daniels in her bid to oust Daker and become head of the medical centre herself. There is further complication when Mrs Daniels informs Rose Marie, who is her doctor, that she thinks her husband is having an affair.
In the sequel television film, A Very Polish Practice (1992), Daker and Grete live together in Poland, where he struggles with the former Communist country's antiquated health service. Grete encounters an ex-lover (Tadeusz Melnik, played by Alfred Molina), who helped her get out of Poland and to whom she had promised herself out of gratitude. She battles to decide whether to stay with Stephen and their child or to go with Melnik (with or without the child), confessing that she still loves him as well as Stephen. The idea for the second series was said to have come from the actress Joanna Kanska, who played Grete. Melnik eventually gives the couple his blessing.
Production
Lowlands University (the fictional institution at which the series was set) was based on the University of East Anglia campus near Norwich.
The production wanted to film location sequences at UEA and also feature its campus skyline in the opening title sequence (which depicts an "apocalyptic vision of a university" which is then "illuminated by love") but the university was sensitive about its image and wary of television portrayals of universities in the wake of the 1981 TV adaptation of Malcolm Bradbury's The History Man, and so declined to be involved.
The locations for the series' filmed sequences were the universities of Keele and Birmingham. Most episodes of series 1 begin with sequences shot from the roof of the Arts Building tower at Birmingham, revealing the distinctive Ashley and Strathcona Buildings as the refuse truck drives along Ring Road North past the School of Education building and sometimes past residential block D at Keele. The scenes involving the lake were shot in the vicinity of the Vale halls of residence at Birmingham; the buildings that can be seen around the lake were demolished and replaced with modern student residences in 2006. Also used for exterior filming was the BT engineer training school at Yarnfield Park in Staffordshire. Most of the interiors were shot at BBC Pebble Mill (first series) and London (second), in the common combined film/video format.