David Tucker gives strong comic personalities room without insisting that we notice the direction. A Very Peculiar Practice makes a persuasive case for that restraint, though its eccentricity sometimes keeps the characters at a distance.
Fi1m perspective
John Bird’s Vice-Chancellor Ernest Hemmingway gives A Very Peculiar Practice (1986) something to question beyond the competence of its doctors. Andrew Davies’s campus medical comedy needs the university around them to remain credible, and David Tucker gives its competing personalities room without announcing every oddity. We laughed, then felt uneasy, because the professional setting remained recognisable beneath the absurd behaviour. That restraint is the chief reason we rate his direction here: the writing is peculiar enough without someone insisting that we notice.
Tucker directed all 14 episodes and the sequel film, working closely with Davies on the series’ ensemble and tone. He has described a first script for the second series in which the characters repeated what they had done before. It is a sensible worry for a comedy with so many distinctive personalities. Our reservation about the finished series is related: its taste for eccentricity sometimes stops us caring as much as we would like.
His early television work included episodes of Tenko (1981), followed by the sustained work on A Very Peculiar Practice. The Gravy Train (1990) and Behaving Badly (1992) continued the serial drama, before a longer career within continuing programmes. That later work includes more than 80 episodes of EastEnders and several series of Call the Midwife. These credits cover different demands, from establishing a serial’s tone to taking responsibility for individual episodes within an existing programme.
We would not pretend that this makes every programme bearing his name equally worth seeking out. The stronger reason to pay attention is his work with Davies, where the handling of a crowded ensemble gives us something more useful to judge than the length of a credit list. He lets the writer and actors do plenty, and occasionally perhaps too much. Start with A Very Peculiar Practice, provided cultivated eccentricity is not an immediate disqualification.
Biography
David Tucker is a British director of television, film and theatre. He directed all 14 episodes of the BBC series A Very Peculiar Practice (1986–1988) and episodes of Tenko (1981).
His television credits include the miniseries The Gravy Train (1990) and A Year in Provence (1993), as well as episodes of Midsomer Murders, Call the Midwife, EastEnders, Casualty, Holby City and Miss Marple: Nemesis (1987). He has also directed short films including Burn the Clock (2013).
Tucker began his career in theatre, serving as an assistant director at the RSC and associate director at the Bristol Old Vic, Liverpool Playhouse and Manchester Library Theatre, where he directed more than 40 professional productions. He has taught at the National Film and Television School and other institutions. He received a BAFTA nomination for A Very Peculiar Practice and an International Emmy nomination for The Gravy Train.
