Television series
All Creatures Great and Small
A cosy, big-hearted period drama following a young vet finding his feet among the farms and eccentrics of 1930s Yorkshire. It's slow, sunlit, occasionally muddy, and built around small kindnesses rather than plot twists. Ideal Sunday-evening viewing if you want warmth, gorgeous scenery, and animals treated as seriously as the humans.
If you liked this
Call the Midwife2012
The gold standard for gentle period ensemble drama — community, hardship, and tenderness handled with the same unhurried, humane touch as Herriot's Yorkshire.
But It leans harder into medical distress and grief; some episodes are genuinely heavy going.
Downton Abbey2010
If you love the big country houses, class comedy, and slow-burn relationships of the Skeldale House world, this scales it up with more servants and more scandal.
But More soap opera than slice-of-life; the melodrama can feel a world away from Herriot's modest charm.
The Durrells2016
A warm, funny family drama stuffed with animals, eccentric neighbours, and sun-drenched scenery — practically Herriot's cousin, relocated to Corfu.
But Broader comic beats and a chaotic family dynamic that's a bit louder than the Farnon household.
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
The Yorkshire Vet2015
Same profession, same county, same gentle rhythms — just with the fiction stripped away to show you the real thing it's based on.
A real documentary series following actual working vets in the Yorkshire Dales — the same landscapes, same farmyard chaos, but nobody's acting.
But No scripted warmth or narrative arcs, just real cases, some of which don't end happily.
More like this (8)
Doc Martin2004
Swap vet for GP and Yorkshire for Cornwall and you've got the same premise — outsider professional, close-knit village, endless colourful patients.
But Martin himself is prickly and difficult in a way James Herriot never is; the humour is spikier.
Grantchester2014
Same postwar English village texture, same rhythm of episodic problem-solving with a gentle emotional undertow running beneath it.
But It's a murder mystery at heart, so there's more crime and moral weight than farmyard comfort.
Cranford2007
An ensemble village drama with exactly this blend of humour, gossip, and quiet heartbreak, set a century earlier but recognisably the same England.
But No vets, no farms — it's more parlour-room social comedy than mud-and-livestock drama.
Lark Rise to Candleford2008
Rural community drama with the same seasonal rhythms and gentle character studies, just a few decades further back in time.
But Slower and more diffuse, without a single strong lead to anchor it the way Herriot anchors his show.
Anne with an E2017
Different country, different century, but the same tender belief in kindness and community as the engine of drama, beautifully shot.
But More overtly emotional and issue-driven, with a younger protagonist and a different tonal register.
Sanditon2019no page yet
For the seaside-town ensemble feel and gentle romantic comedy if you want something a touch more Austen and a touch less agricultural.
But Romance is the main event here, not vocation or community life, so it's a thinner echo of the original.
Мажор2014no page yet
Same emotional engine: an outsider learning respect for animals and rural work through hands-on, unglamorous experience.
A tender, funny Japanese anime about a city boy at an agricultural high school, learning to care for and slaughter animals he's come to love.
But Animated, subtitled, and aimed at teens — a big format leap if you've never watched anime before.
Local Hero1983
The same core shape — a professional arrives to do a job in a close rural community and is slowly, quietly won over by its people and its landscape.
A wry, gorgeous Scottish comedy about an outsider sent to a small coastal community who ends up utterly charmed and changed by it.
But It's a one-off two-hour film with a very dry, melancholy sense of humour, not a returning comfort-watch.
People
Cast
Production
- Ben VanstoneExecutive Producer
- Caroline Cooper CharlesExecutive Producer
- Colin CallenderExecutive Producer
- Hugo HeppellExecutive Producer
- Louise PedersenExecutive Producer
- Melissa GallantExecutive Producer
- Rebecca EatonExecutive Producer
- Susanne SimpsonExecutive Producer
- Tracie WrightLine Producer
- Richard BurrellProducer
Recommended by
Call the Midwife, Heartbeat, Monarch of the Glen, Lark Rise to Candleford, The Durrells, The Yorkshire Vet