In series two, Stephen finds a new love interest – the fiery and enigmatic Dr Grete Grotowska, who brings a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘complicated love life’.
Lyn is possibly the only weak point in an otherwise superb series – ordinary to the point of dullness, she ends up being eclipsed by the rampant eccentricity that surrounds her.
Lyn’s interest in body language leads her to make a project of helping Stephen overcome his issues with physical intimacy, and a relationship develops between them. Stephen meets her when she saves him from drowning in the university pool. Outside Jock’s ‘kingdom’, we meet Lyn Turtle (Amanda Hillwood), a policewoman studying psychology at the university whilst on a sabbatical from the force. Well, maybe not the top – she would undoubtedly be happiest remaining behind the scenes, pulling the strings of the foolish male puppets who supposedly rule the roost. The other two doctors Daker finds in the medical practice are no less bizarre in their own special ways than the crack-brained patriarch who runs the place: Bob (‘Do you think you could manage Robert?’) Buzzard is a venomous, misanthropic ball of frustration, brilliantly played by David Troughton and Rose Marie (the excellent Barbara Flynn) is a creepy, scheming über-feminist, who sleeps her way around the university, seducing men and women alike, as part of her elaborate (and quite incomprehensible) power game, designed to facilitate her rise to the top of the ‘phalocentric’ hierarchy. However, like King Lear (a Shakespearean character with whom he often compares himself), Jock finds it difficult to leave well alone after his abdication, and hangs around like a ghost made flesh, memorably turning up unexpectedly, on several occasions, at his fellow doctors’ homes, cheerfully announcing, ‘Old Jock has come to stay with you’. The medical centre is run by drink-sodden eccentric Jock McCannon (the sublime Graham Crowden), until he relinquishes his power and hands over the reins to Stephen in the second series.
Written by Andrew Davies, in the days before he devoted himself exclusively to adapting other people’s literary works for television, the series follows the story of hapless, idealistic medico Stephen Daker (played by the ever-reliable Peter Davison), who joins the barking-mad medical practice of the worst university in the country, if not the world – Lowlands. The darkly surreal masterpiece that is A Very Peculiar Practice was first broadcast on BBC 2 on.
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