Indian Doctor, The (BBC-1 2010-2013, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Mark Williams)

In period comedy drama series The Indian Doctor Prem Sharma leaves Delhi in 1963 newly qualified as a Doctor and has his eyes well and truly opened when he takes a job as a GP in the small Welsh mining village of Trefelin. Having left their home behind following a family tragedy Prem and his wife, Kamini, have ideas of an upmarket consultancy job in London but find that the only thing available is to take over from the recently deceased local doc in Trefelin. Naturally neither the Sharma’s or the locals are overjoyed about the situation.

The local Coal Mine is the life of the village, almost all the men work down at “the pit” and it seems the coal board manager Richard Sharpe has more than few skeletons in his closet and why is he so keen on getting hold of the previous doctor’s missing diary.

A wonderful sense of period and some strong playing make this a nicely enjoyable series and one that does touch on a very real aspect of British post war history when large amounts of educated immigrants arrived in the UK and found that settling in was harder than they imagined. Indeed in the early sixties MP Enoch Powell was responsible for instigating the arrival of many much needed doctors to the UK, he would later become a vociferous opponent of Britain’s immigration policy!

During the week that the first season of The Indian Doctor aired the BBC had something of a 1960’s fest with another daytime show called Rewind The Sixties and presented by Lulu taking a look at the decade.

production details
UK / BBC One / 15×45 minute episodes / Broadcast Monday 15 November 2010 – Friday 8 November 2013

Writer: Bill Armstrong / Executive Producers: Tom Ware, Deep Sehgal / Director: Tim Whitby

cast
SANJEEV BHASKAR as Prem Sharma
AYESHA DHARKER as Kamini Sharma
MARK WILLIAMS as Richard Sharpe
BETH ROBERT as Sylvia Sharpe
MALI HARRIES as Megan Evans
ALEXANDER VLAHOS as Tom Evans
IFAN HUW DAFYDD as Owen Griffiths
JACOB OAKLEY as Dan Griffiths
NAOMI EVERSON as Gina Nicolli
ERICA EIRIAN as Sian Davies