Rachel Shenton on why we can't get enough of feelgood TV

At the Oscars in 2018, luminaries like Meryl Streep and Daniel Day-Lewis were among the nominees waiting patiently to find out if they’d won yet another golden statue for their mantelpiece.

By the time the curtain fell at the end of the evening Day-Lewis and Streep’s carefully prepared speeches were left undelivered.

They didn’t win but Rachel Shenton, however, got to deliver hers, to the most star-studded audience at Hollywood’s biggest annual bash.

Prior to starring in All Creatures Great And Small, Rachel starred in The Silent Child, a brilliant short drama produced and directed by her then fiance, Chris Overton.

Rachel with husband Chris Overton at the Oscars.

The drama won the Oscar for Best Short in 2018 and in front of a packed Dolby Theatre, Rachel delivered her speech both audibly and in sign language after a promise to her deaf co-star.

No mean feat when you’re feeling nervy, have understandably shaky hands, and Meryl is making eye contact from the audience.

“I guess I was quite focused on what I was saying,” former Hollyoaks star Rachel says. “I just sort of thought…wow! I didn’t get caught up in the moment and the noise. It was a sort of bird’s eye view of the moment. Maybe I dissociated for a moment.

“I remember looking down from where I was doing my speech and Meryl Streep was in my eyeline…

“These are people that I’ve got so much respect and admiration for, and they’re all there in the same room, and you’re part of that. It’s wild!”

All Creatures

It is six years on from that glittering moment and Rachel, 36, has gone from Tinsel to something decidedly more provincial with All Creatures Great And Small.

Channel 5’s adaptation of James Herriot’s books began in 2020 and, remarkably, is already about to begin its fifth series; the sixth will arrive next year.

Scottish actor Nicholas Ralph plays vet James while Rachel is his wife, Helen, and together – with their new baby – they navigate bucolic dramas of life in Darrowby in the Yorkshire Dales, all while the threat of war looms.

With six series in as many years – not counting Christmas specials – the show has been a huge hit for Channel 5, but coming back so often isn’t a chore for Rachel or, it sounds, the rest of the cast and crew.

“It sounds so cheesy, but it’s true. It’s special, All Creatures,” she says. “Every year we have crew who could be doing other jobs who want to come back because of what it’s like to work on it. They jump off other jobs so they can come back to All Creatures.

“That’s down to the community on the show, and how much they care about the stories. I wish I had something other to say than that because I know how it sounds, but it is lovely. It’s been a pleasure, they’re real good eggs.”

Rachel has played Helen from when her character was a young farm girl; now she’s a young mum whose husband has joined the RAF.

“I’ve been with Helen since she was a single girl living at home with dad, meeting James, falling in love, moving out, getting married.

“You get to join someone through a portion of their lives, that’s a privilege. You get to be with this character through all these major milestones. And I love the people I work with. I just hope there’s more!”

Two of the opening shots for this latest series show life in the village, and James’s RAF base, in the spring of 1941.

Dozens of extras, period clothes, classic cars and even Second World War-era aircraft were brought together for the expensive scenes.

At the centre of one of them was Rachel. Whereas she didn’t show nerves in front of Hollywood’s a-listers at the Oscars, she felt the pressure of getting that shot right.

“That particular day actually was really tricky. I don’t think it shows on camera, but there was torrential rain bouncing off the floor on that day,” she explains.

“I think that’s the worst rain we saw all season, and it didn’t let up. It started in the morning and we hoped it would subside by lunchtime but it just didn’t.

“By the time the scene came around, the poor crew have been outside in the pouring rain, the guys in the classic cars were ready to go, and I didn’t want to be the one at the centre of what almost feels like a dance routine who messes things up.”

Working with children and animals

The showbusiness adage of never working with children or animals is difficult when making a show like this, Rachel concedes, especially as her character Helen now has a young baby to look after.

“I’ve worked on other shows with babies and it’s a bit like shooting on film where you have to get everything right,” she adds. “By the time it comes to shooting you’ve maybe only got one or two takes so everyone’s sharp and ready, which is nice.

“Everyone’s tone lowers just a little bit because there’s a baby, everybody is a bit calmer. I like the focus the baby brings.

“Sometimes I had the option to have the real baby or a jelly baby. I always preferred the real baby…”

Those of us who have never filmed on television might have imagined Rachel being offered a tiny sweetie as a prop.

“Oh, that would be great!” laughs Rachel.

Jelly Baby is in fact the industry name for a prop baby which stands in when the real baby needs a rest. Indeed, it is far from an unhealthy treat – this Jelly Baby is something of a workout.

“We gave it a nickname, Concrete Baby,” Rachel says. “It’s so heavy, much heavier than the real thing. Give me a proper baby any day!”

New mum Helen may be on her own but her motherhood, and James’s absence, gives the show a chance to explore the classic Herriot books’ themes of community in the face of adversity.

“The reality is James might not come home,” says Rachel. “That’s almost unthinkable, isn’t it?

“This series is about them navigating through the war, and our focus is on community and togetherness and, because of what’s going on in the wider world, we need that more than ever.

“Alf Wight’s choice was to focus not on the war, but on the animals and the cases the vets attended. But you can’t deny what’s going on.”

While other hit shows explore darker themes, All Creatures is unashamedly simple and that, Rachel believes, is what sets it apart.

“There aren’t any baddies, really. People might mess up,” she adds. “But All Creatures is sort of rich in its simplicity, and I think now, in this world that we live in, that feels sometimes really cruel and divisive, that sort of feels radical. And it’s a pleasure to be part of something lovely and is about people being nice to each other. I think we need that.”

Gift that keeps on giving

When vet surgeon Alf Wight – who spent his formative years in Glasgow – penned If Only They Could Talk, a memoir about his experiences in Yorkshire, in 1970 under the pen name James Herriot, it became an immediate hit.

Moving and hilarious in equal measure, it wasn’t long before a screen adaptation was under way.

Simon Ward took the role of the young pre-Second World War rural vet opposite Anthony Hopkins as friend and colleague Siegfried.

A review saying “the film could not be recommended to anyone other than fans of The Archers and children who derive pleasure from watching people doing unpleasant things to sick animals” didn’t put audiences off.

A sequel, It Shouldn’t Happen To A Vet, soon followed, where the lead roles were taken by John Alderton and Colin Blakely, then quickly followed by a TV series in 1978 on BBC1.

That ran until 1990 and, in 2011, a biographical drama about young James Herriot’s years at Glasgow University, starring Iain De Caestecker was another hit for the BBC.

Channel 5’s 2020 adaptation has so far run for 28 episodes, and has found fans across the Atlantic, with 10 million viewers tuning in to the first series.

Rachel Shenton stars in All Creatures Great and Small, Channel 5 and My5, Thursday, 9pm