A Very Peculiar Practice

Firstly, this series is not to everyone's taste. I also wouldn't be at all surprised if it didn't travel too well.

Secondly, it is a 'high comedy', no laughter track, 60 minutes (without adverts) episodes, deliberately slow plot, complex dialogue scenes.

However, now the first series is available on DVD, many can now found out what an absolutely fantastic series this was.

It is based on a 'new' English University Campus, the type built in the 1950's and 60's which display concrete cancer out of every nook and cranny. It has a medical practice to serve students and staff, and every one is slightly mad and eccentric except for the star, Stephen 'Touch Taboo' Daker, his open relationship partner Lyn Turtle, and his roommate (Chen).

Do you like 'The Office'? Well, it is often cited that the prototype for David Brent was Basic Fawlty; but just watch this, and you will know it is Dr Bob Buzzard, what a fantastic creation!

Why is it good?

The acting, the scripts and the direction (even the set design) is fantastic; multiple viewings will be rewarded. Be prepared for a black-edged, intelligent, highly satirical look at University life, complete with a couple of nuns. Andrew (let's do another adaptation) Davies has never really topped this.

I don't think they dare to make slow moving, intelligent, character-based comedy dramas anymore - this is a big pity.

I am curious to know how other people view this, I wouldn't be surprised if there were many who didn't like it. But if you watch this, because of this, or other reviews, and you like it, you will be forever grateful!

This is the best comedy I've ever seen. Written, perhaps as a serie a clef, by ex-academic Andrew Davies, who went on to adapt Middlemarch, Pride and Prejudice etc for the BBC, it is also the best comedy ever set in the health centre of a provincial British university.

It is many years now since I saw this series, but I vividly and fondly remember David Troughton's performance as Bob Buzzard. Staggeringly selfish and self centred, he dominated the series. I loved him. One would expect no less from David Troughton, of course. Bob is up there with the other great TV monsters, Alan Partridge and David Brent.

It is bizarre that the series has never been repeated, nor, so far as I know, released on video. Any explanations?

I treated my husband to the DVDs of A Very Peculiar Practice Series 1 for Christmas, and it cheered us up enormously. Instead of watching the usual bilge dished up on British TV, we wallowed in Andrew Davies' witty scripts and the excellent acting of all involved. I can hardly think of a more perfectly cast show - Bob Buzzard is a truly stunning invention, played to perfection by David Troughton. And I doubt if Graham Crowden was ever better. Add to the mix the fragrant Barbara Flynn and you have perfection. The little boy lost look of Peter Davison is affecting, and Amanda Hillwood provides a very decorative foil (even if her accent is hard to pin down - I spent the first episode assuming she was Australian!). We were amazed how well it stood the test of time - my husband is a university lecturer and says things have hardly changed at all, just got worse. To anyone who has never seen this excellent series, give yourself a real treat. You won't regret it.

One of the very best of 1980s TV. Spot on scripts satirising Thatcher's Britain. Excellent cast too: Peter Davidson & Barbara Flynn of course, but also a young Hugh Grant making an appearance in #1.2 as a Scottish lay-preacher.

In the UK, Series 1 was shown on BBC4 recently (at close to midnight) as part of an Andrew Davies season. Hopefully we'll get series 2 again as well at some point.