‘All Creatures’ interview: James Anthony-Rose introduces new vet Richard Carmody

All Creatures Great and Small is back this autumn!

Based on the much-loved collection of stories by author James Herriot, Channel 5’s hit period drama follows the heartwarming and humorous adventures of a young country vet in the Yorkshire Dales.

As we return to Skeldale House in the spring of 1940, there’s change on the horizon for everyone.

Watch the trailer here:

Season 4 is airing in the UK at 9pm on Thursday nights on Channel 5, with six brand new episodes airing weekly.

All Creatures Great and Small returns in the US early next year on PBS Masterpiece.

American viewers can catch up on the first three seasons with this free 7-day trial of the PBS Masterpiece channel on Amazon Prime!

Here, newcomer James Anthony-Rose introduces his character Richard Carmody, who joins the series in next week’s episode:

 

Tell us about Carmody…

“He’s a bit of a fish out of water. He comes up from London, he’s a veterinary student so he is there to do a placement and to be James’s assistant, in a not dissimilar way to the way James came in to be an assistant to Siegfried in the first series.

“And very quickly it becomes apparent that… well, Carmody would have everybody think that there isn’t much that he can be taught.

“And this, of course, is the initiation process that he goes through for the first half of his time in the fourth series, insofar as being taken down a peg or two and being put through his paces, and coming to the realisation that maybe he does have a lot to learn and not all the answers can be found in a book, which very much is his go-to when searching for answers.

“He’s very theory-based, very academic. His trajectory initially is coming to the realisation that he has to work on his people skills. And that’s something that James and Mrs Hall and Helen – and Siegfried, surprisingly, to some extent – help him with.

“But yes, certainly when he arrives, Carmody gives Siegfried a bit of a run for his money. It was a lot of fun to play, to bounce off Sam and Nick and Anna and Rachel with this character, who’s so different, I think, from everyone else that’s come before him.

“He’s maybe not a spanner in the works, but he’s definitely a challenge for everyone at Skeldale.”

 

How did it feel when you first walked onto the set?

“It was strange in the sense that, in preparation for filming, I binge-watched the whole three series, so it was slightly surreal to be walking onto the set that I’d been watching on a screen for the past week.

“It was like falling through the looking glass in a way. Suddenly, everything was around me and I was in amongst it.

“It was magical actually, because the Skeldale set is like a functioning house – it works! You walk down the corridor, and then you’re in another room, and there’s not much pretence to it at all.

“It all works. The taps work. You turn a corner and you’re in the living room. And so, yes, in that sense, I felt completely immersed in the whole world of All Creatures as soon as I stepped over the threshold.

“It was a very warm feeling and one that I’ll always remember.”

 

Were you aware of the books and the history of All Creatures Great and Small before you auditioned?

“I was aware of it, but only vaguely. I hadn’t read the books, but I was aware of the original series because my parents had grown up watching it.

“I also was aware that it had been remade for Channel 5. When the call came through for the audition, I had a vague sense of the world that we were in but I was surprised by how much love there is in the world for this story and how much the books mean to so many people.

“It very quickly became apparent to me from telling friends that I was going to be doing this, as suddenly people were coming out of the woodwork going, “I love All Creatures Great and Small!”

“So many people were saying, “I read those books, they were my favourite, and it made me want to become a vet.”

“So it felt like a real privilege to be bringing a character from the books to life and be a part of that world that means so much to so many people. It felt like a really special thing.”

 

Were you a bit nervous about working with the animals?

“I’ve never had any pets, so I’ve not lived with animals. I lived for a short time with two cats who were somebody else’s. But other than that, no.

“I didn’t feel particularly concerned about working with animals at all, I didn’t really think about it that much, which I suppose was a good thing, because I felt in a very safe pair of hands with Andy, our veterinary consultant.

“He took me to a farm, and I met a cow and a couple of horses and some calves, and it was actually an incredibly nourishing experience to work with the animals, you become very aware of your behaviour around them, which as an actor is something that you’re always thinking about to some extent with regards to how you are coming across and how your behaviour is affecting another person.

“And I think that can be extended to the way that we work with the animals, insofar as our sensitivity of movement, our body language, our tone of voice – all of that played into working with the animals so it was a really wonderful experience to have that initial introduction to just getting to grips with a stethoscope.

“But knowing that Carmody was inexperienced with the hands-on, practical approach to working with animals, it worked in my favour in that I had not really had much experience with animals, because any rabbit in the headlights that you might see on camera is probably more real than acting because I was very much in that situation of not quite knowing what I was doing.

“So I didn’t want to know my way around the veterinary skills too much because there had to be a certain amount of naivety and innocence in Carmody, but I also felt a responsibility to make sure that I wasn’t making the animals feel nervous in reality, or uncomfortable.

“I saw it as a little bit like the way that Tommy Cooper did his magic tricks in that to make the trick look like he didn’t know how to do the magic trick, he had to know how to do the magic trick. I thought of it like that.

“So I made sure I knew what I was doing, the basics of making sure that I was safe around the animal, and the animal felt safe around me.

“But then, from that I could put in my little comedic touches of not quite looking like I knew what I was doing. Which was good fun.”

 

Did you have a favourite animal co-star?

“It’s hard. I guess I have a soft spot for Bernard, the tortoise, whose real name, I believe, was George, because he was the first animal that I worked with in the examination room.

“And yes, that was a lovely, lovely thing because I guess I related to some extent with George as a creature, and certainly Bernard as a character, with him coming out of his shell, literally, going at his own pace.

“But funnily enough, George the tortoise actually was quite a speedy tortoise. We were hoping that he’d be incredibly static, but he was on the move as soon as we put him on the examination table!”

 

Are you naturally a bit of a joker? Is that one of the things that drew you perhaps to the character?

“Yes. I was really keen early on, even from the costume fitting where we were discussing what he might wear, to make sure that he wasn’t too dry, that he did have a quirkiness to him. And that comes across in his choice of clothing.

“He wears a bow tie a lot of the time and that, I think, summed up his slight eccentricity. But it’s the blissfully unaware energy that he gives off that definitely attracts me, and something that I could completely relate to.

“I am known to do things in a slightly peculiar way that other people find amusing without me trying to be funny. And that, for me, is the best kind of comic character.

“It’s not someone who’s trying to be funny, it’s the fact that they’re unaware that they’re doing something that’s funny.

“That made it feel like it fit like a glove, the whole part, and as soon as I had the costume on, that bow tie, I looked in the mirror and thought, “Yes, there it is.””

 

Tell me about Carmody learning to drive down those windy country lanes…

“Again, that was another thing that was like life imitating art, or art imitating life. It was a completely new experience for me and something that I didn’t have anything to go on as I have no prior experience of driving.

“I’ve always maintained that I couldn’t trust myself in a car, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to trust Carmody driving a car because he is a bit reckless.

“He’s either too tentative, which is never a good thing in a driver, or he’s too extreme and puts his foot down a little bit too much.

“It was all filmed on low-loaders, all of that stuff with me behind the wheel. So when I appear to be driving, I’m never actually driving.

“I never got to experience turning on the engine and having to crank the steering wheel around that I’d seen Sam and Nick do.

“But it has made me actually, for the first time, seriously consider learning to drive. Just for ease, for other jobs where I’m potentially required to drive.

“I think it would make sense. So that may be what I do this summer. I’m not putting any pressure on myself to get it first time, but I’m going to give it a go!”

 

All Creatures Great and Small is available to watch on PBS Masterpiece via Amazon Prime with a free 7-day trial.