The Indian Doctor

The Indian Doctor is returning to BBC One

A record number of you (well over 400) posted your appreciation on Sanjeev Bhaskar's post on this blog for our recent daytime drama The Indian Doctor, so I'm absolutely delighted to tell you first that I have just recommissioned it for a second series.

A welcome repeat for this charming series starring Sanjeev Bhaskar, which was a big hit with our readers (who described it as 'an antidote to the winter blues'). Bhaskar plays high-flying Delhi graduate Dr Prem Sharma, who arrives in the UK in 1963 in the first wave of Indian doctors wooed by then health minister Enoch Powell. The doctor's glamorous wife isn't too happy with the sleepy Welsh mining village where they are to live. And the locals have their own issues, including the Coal Board's snooty local manager (Mark Williams), who has a few skeletons in his cupboard. It's a lovely slice of nostalgia, served with a big dollop of social comment. More tomorrow at 3.30pm.

Pity the poor unemployed actor whiling away the afternoon in front of the telly, only to be confronted and tormented by the kind of quality drama he or she cannot find work in.

Normally the daytime schedules comprise of home decoration, self-help, true life confessionals and bargain hunt shows - fodder, basically - but recently the BBC has taken the bold and very welcome decision to introduce original drama to its schedules. Only last week, the excellent Moving On finished its short series of self-contained plays, to be followed by a new comedy drama series, The Indian Doctor.

Set in the South Wales valleys of the early sixties, to a soundtrack of Cliff Richard and Adam Faith, it follows the adventures of the titular doctor and his snooty wife, fresh off the boat from India, having left an opulent lifestyle and a personal tragedy behind them.

Exotic and alien, the couple's arrival in the small mining village provokes a wide range of responses, from obsequiousness, through to bafflement, to outright hostility.

The Indian Doctor is helplessly nostalgic, eminently entertaining and totally unable to resist the temptation to show the glorious countryside it's set among.

Inevitably, it invites comparison with Heartbeat, but there is one major difference between the two shows: The Indian Doctor has racism as an underlying theme, lending it an uncomfortable edge and arresting any potential drift into cosy complacency.

However, while the show acknowledges the inherent racism of the period, it doesn't allow itself to be hijacked entirely by it and even challenges audience expectations. In a particularly neat twist, the doctor's wife is no demure victim, but an outrageous snob, displaying an intolerance of her new neighbours that more than matches their own.

There is a great deal to enjoy about The Indian Doctor - good lines, good characters and a good cast. Taking the title role, with a predictability that would be depressing if his performance weren't so engaging, is Sanjeev Bhaskar.

Fans of gentle 1960s-set village comedy dramas must have been gutted when Heartbeat was cancelled recently. But lucky them, it's back, in daytime form, under the name The Indian Doctor. True, it's about a GP, not a policeman, arriving in a small Welsh town where classic pop songs soundtrack every plot development. And there's a racial twist, as the hero is Sanjeev Bhaskar's Dr Prem Sharma, fresh from Delhi with his glamorous wife Kamini, part of the influx of Indian doctors recruited by health minister Enoch Powell to staff the NHS.

The locals are completely ignorant about Indians - they're even shown a special information film to brief them on their new neighbour, followed by a screening of The Millionairess, the dodgy film in which Peter Sellers pretends to be Indian and sings Goodness Gracious Me, a nod to the title of Bhaskar's breakthrough sketch show.

But while this might sound on paper like the basis for a gritty drama about racism and immigration, it's been made as a cheerful afternoon wallow in the lighter side of culture clash. Pretty much everyone is well-meaning, apart from designated villain Mark Williams, playing the moustache-twirling Coal Board boss and his snobby wife. They invite the Sharmas to a dinner party, complete with tasteless Vesta Curry from a box to make them feel at home, thinking that they're doing the poor rubes a big favour - only to find that Mrs S is from an aristocratic Indian family, more used to mixing with the Mountbattens.

Meanwhile, the rest of the town are friendly and the one family who are a little unsure about having an Indian doctor are quickly won over when he comes through in an emergency, so that's all right then. Still, perhaps that's fair enough - not every immigrant to Britain suffered racism, particularly in 1963 when the country was crying out for them, and it would be a shame if every fictional account was full of unpleasantness, as if - in the long run - people didn't manage mostly to settle in perfectly well. And this isn't heavyweight drama, just a watchable and mildly amusing enough nostalgic little series.

BBC1, you're spoiling us. Following two weeks of daytime drama in Moving On, they're giving us this charming weekday comedy drama. It stars Sanjeev Bhaskar as a high-flying Delhi graduate who arrives in the UK in 1963 as part of the first wave of Indian doctors wooed by then health minister Enoch Powell. Arriving in a sleepy Welsh mining village, his glamorous wife's not too happy with the situation. And neither are the locals, including the Coal Board's slightly snooty local manager (Mark Williams), who obviously has a few skeletons in his cupboard. It's a lovely slice of nostalgia, albeit served with a big dollop of social comment.

Video: Sanjeev Bhaskar interview

Sanjeev Bhaskar explains to BBC Breakfast the irony over Enoch Powell being responsible for inviting doctors from the Commonwealth to kickstart the NHS when later in his career he was campaigning to evacuate immigrants.

The Indian Doctor: Filming in a Welsh village

The Indian Doctor is about Prem Sharma, and his wife, Kamini, who arrive in Britain in the summer of 1963. Rather than the bright lights of London, they are posted to a small Welsh mining village, taking over from the previous doctor there, who has unexpectedly passed away.

'Enoch Powell was not an out-and-out racist'

Sanjeev Bhasjar and producer Tom Ware on their new BBC One drama that aims to remind us how Powell promoted Asian immigration.