Liverpool Echo – April 22, 2002

Born And Bred (BBC1)

WHERE would Sunday telly be without the 1950s?

And, just as importantly, how would it cope without either permanent summer or idyllic rural communities peopled almost exclusively by charming eccentrics?

In this new drama series, James Bolam and Michael French star as father-and-son doctors in a sun-kissed Lancastrian village during – you guessed – the 1950s.

Dad (Bolam) wants to retire, so son (French) feels compelled to give up his practice in Manchester to ensure the charming eccentrics continue to get the health care they deserve.

That’s the plot in a nutshell.

However, while the two of them ponder their futures, there is plenty of time for the compulsory steam engine sequence, the runaway cart gag (on loan, along with many other dramatic devices, from Last Of The Summer Wine) and even a will-she-won’t-she wedding.

And that’s without mentioning the comedy falling-in-the-river bit or the vicar who’s a bookmaker in his spare time.

It all adds up, despite an impressive cast list of comedy and character actors, to a rather predictable collection of parts apparently assembled according to a BBC masterplan to leave us all longing for the days before commercial TV