All Drummers Great and Small

BBC Four started a repeat run of The Box of Delights yesterday. I have fond but vague memories of the programme from its first broadcast -- 40 years ago! -- and I was excited to see it again. I'll maybe talk about it another time, as it ticks a lot of boxes for me: ancient British magic, mischievous hobo-wizards, time travel, snow and winter, wolves! It has some thematic crossover with Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising, another childhood favourite that I should revisit at some point.

The real point of this post is what came after. BBC Four followed up with a 1978 episode of All Creatures Great and Small, and I hadn't seen that in years either so I left it on to see what it was like with adult eyes, and... it's really strange. If you haven't seen it, it's a gentle comedy-drama about a veterinary practice in rural Yorkshire in the 1930s, which is already quite niche for a prime-time show, but -- and I assume this is because it's the BBC and the BBC's public service remit means there has to be at least a token attempt at education -- it's also full of graphic on-camera medical procedures. Imagine tuning in on a Sunday evening, perhaps after your Sunday roast, and then watching Doctor Who trying to remember his lines while up to the shoulder -- and this is the actor, mind you, not a double -- in a cow's backside.

Still, it was massively popular, got millions of viewers, and seemed to run for years -- although now that I look it up, it had two three-year runs separated by a decade -- but what I want to talk about is the theme music. I had a memory of a gentle but jolly piano theme in keeping with the Sunday night broadcast. and that's sort of what it is, but what surprised me last night was how hard the drummer goes:



Alas the theme is only about a minute long; the drummer was just getting going!