A Very Peculiar Practice: a very modern campus comedy, 35 years on

Abstract

Abstract On May 21st 1986, the BBC broadcast the first episode of Andrew Davies’s black campus comedy A Very Peculiar Practice. 2021 celebrated the series’ 35th anniversary. This article provides an analysis of the contribution of the series to the genre of campus comedy. It provides an evaluation of the major themes, plots and characters introduced throughout the series and how these reflected, and reacted to, the political environment and ideology of the time. The series is discussed in the broader context of the campus novel, the genre of fiction in which staff, students and university management are satirised, and its contribution to the genre of television and film medicine/hospital comedy is also discussed.