The Indian Doctor

Although Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze loudly informs us that it's now 1966, nothing much has changed in the Welsh village of Trefelin over the past three years. The villagers have generally accepted Prem Sharma (Sanjeev Bhaskar) as their local GP, although his clever, sophisticated wife Kamini (Ayesha Dharker) is still pushing him to expand both his practice and his horizons.

Her hopes are dashed when Robert and Basil Thomas, the flashy sons of the former mine-owner, return, throwing money around and announcing their plan to build a new town where the houses will have... wait for it, central heating and constant hot water. Imagine!

This gentle character-led period drama (think Heartbeat in Wales, with medicine instead of policework) was rightly garlanded with awards for its first series. Its third series is just as polished and charming.

The Indian Doctor: fashion in Trefelin

Designing costumes for The Indian Doctor has been one of my favourite experiences.

Sanjeev Bhaskar: Daytime viewers deserve decent TV too

Daytime television is generally regarded as cheap, schedule-filling fodder for housewives and the retired, but with the schedules facing cuts, actor Sanjeev Bhaskar has spoken up in its defence.

Gigglebox weekly #40 - The Indian Doctor

This week, for once, I'm able to review a series in its entirety rather on just a single episode.

Dr Prem Sharma's skills as both doctor and pillar of the community are tested as a case of a life-threatening and highly infectious disease is confirmed. Dan, not really a ruffian but as close as it gets in Trefelin, is the victim, but who is the carrier? Life at the pit and on the high street is disrupted while, in a strange combination of deadly serious plotline and light knockabout humour, Emlyn appoints a member of his family to stand guard at the new roadblock, and gives him a truncheon to waggle.

Meanwhile, preacher Herbert Todd, the most strait-laced man in the village, develops a potentially dangerous rebellious streak. He must get it from his daughter.

The Indian Doctor and its cracking 1960s soundtrack

Firstly a massive and humble thank you to all those who watched series one of The Indian Doctor. With just under two million viewers and a couple of awards, it far exceeded all our expectations and the reception enabled us to get together to make series two.

Sanjeev Bhaskar: Educate racists, not punish them

Sanjeev Bhaskar believes it is time to stop punishing footballers accused of racism - and to start educating them instead.

In The Indian Doctor, BBC1's returning daytime drama Sanjeev Bhaskar plays a GP from the Commonwealth who, like many in the early 1960s, answered a call - from Enoch Powell, the then Health Minister, no less - to work for their former colonisers in the NHS. The doc and his wife have so far been welcomed by their neighbours in the small Welsh village and everybody's rubbing along marvellously with no unpleasant imperial grudges being held.

That is, until the doctor's mother-in-law arrives to live with them. As this is the kind of mildly comic throwback series in which mothers-in-law are all battleaxes, Indira Joshi's Pushpa immediately throws her weight around and causes a stir.

It's all terribly predictable and perfectly suited to anyone in a position to half-watch while indulging in an afternoon nap (of course these days, iPlayer means that daytime programmes needn't be confined to their timeslots, but it's my bet that if someone were shown this blind, they'd still guess it was made for afternoons).

Still, there's something quietly radical about its unobtrusive theme of different ethnicities mostly getting along and this time the series features an interesting based-on-true-events story about a real smallpox outbreak in South Wales, which led to mass emergency vaccinations and quarantine.

Call the Midwife may have finished for now, but the combination of nostalgia and medicine remains potent. Award-winning drama The Indian Doctor, set in the south Wales valleys in 1964, is on a smaller scale: as the village GP, Dr Sharma (Sanjeev Bhaskar) seems to be responsible for everything from eye tests to pastoral youth care and advice on romance, and is supported almost every step of the way by his wife Kamini (Ayesha Dharker).

The new series opens with his mother-in-law Pushpa (Indira Joshi) arriving from a smallpox-stricken India and, in a piece of casting that should reap comedic rewards, Mark Heap is settling in as the very serious new vicar.

Audio: Bill Armstrong interview

TV scriptwriter Bill Armstrong talks about getting his first break on Doctors, writing The Indian Doctor for BBC TV and why he has learned to love script editors.