TV review: The Indian Doctor | Miranda

Published on Monday 15 November 2010 10:35

The Indian Doctor BBC1 Miranda BBC2

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.

Speaking of nostalgia, here's a second series of Miranda, just for those who miss 1970s slapstick and shows like Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em. Miranda Hart's namesake character is a Francesca Spencer, prone to falling over, having her dress pulled off by a departing taxi, getting stuck on a sushi carousel and getting into embarrassing misunderstandings. It's kind of like the spoof "Hennimore" sitcom from That Mitchell And Webb Look, where the joke is that you know exactly what joke is coming up.

Done straight it would be terrible, but Hart's blithe honesty that it's all just a silly sitcom, complete with cast members waving bye-bye at the end, is disarming.After bringing us up to speed on the events of the last series, she happily declares: "Right, let's jolly on with the show," and the whole thing's like a community panto, where you know the routines are all ancient but you giggle along a bit anyway, mostly because everyone involved seems to be having so much fun.

Patricia Hodge, her snooty mum, has a good catchphrase: she's always saying of some ordinary activity, "it's what I call …" then using the same word that everyone else uses, like "a walk". It could, as I call it, "catch on".