Peter Davison is particularly good at playing decent men whose authority is uncertain. We value his steadiness among the odd doctors of A Very Peculiar Practice, and the vulnerability that makes his Doctor harder to rely on.
Fi1m perspective
In A Very Peculiar Practice (1986), Davison’s Dr Stephen Daker works among doctors whose professional standing is no guarantee of good sense. Graham Crowden’s Dr Jock McCannon, Barbara Flynn’s Dr Rose Marie and David Troughton’s Dr Bob Buzzard each have room to be funny. Davison keeps Daker central without treating the others as interruptions. He gives the comedy someone steady enough to follow, while leaving room for quite different actors to set their own pace.
His breakthrough had come as Tristan Farnon in All Creatures Great and Small (1978). His years as the Fifth Doctor in Doctor Who (1963), from 1981 to 1984, made his vulnerability more important: here was someone expected to take charge who might need help himself. Where Tom Baker could make amusement seem uncomfortably close to displeasure, Davison makes us question how securely the Doctor can handle a crisis. We felt less safe with his Doctor because his uncertainty made the danger harder to dismiss. He keeps the character worth taking seriously even when we doubt him.
We still have to make allowances for the stubborn pacing of Doctor Who. Andrew Davies’s campus medical comedy has a different weakness: its enthusiasm for eccentricity sometimes stops us caring as much as we would like. Davison’s steadiness helps, though it cannot make every odd colleague matter equally. We recommend A Very Peculiar Practice for the ensemble, with a leading actor willing to let his colleagues be funny in their own ways.
Campion (1989) put his charm and understatement into a period detective series, with Davison as Albert Campion. Later, Toast of London (2014–2015) cast him as a fictionalised version of himself. These parts found further uses for his light comedy without requiring the same sort of uncertain authority. Start with A Very Peculiar Practice, and give Crowden, Flynn and Troughton as much attention as Davison; his generosity is part of what makes it work.
Biography
Peter Davison is an English actor. Born Peter Malcolm Gordon Moffett on 13 April 1951 in Streatham, London, he trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama. He made his television debut in the mid-1970s and first gained prominence as veterinary surgeon Tristan Farnon in the BBC series All Creatures Great and Small (1978–1980, 1988–1990).
Davison achieved international recognition as the fifth incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who (1981–1984), later reprising the role in specials and audio dramas. His other notable television roles include Dr Stephen Daker in A Very Peculiar Practice (1986–1988), Albert Campion in Campion (1989–1990), David Braithwaite in At Home with the Braithwaites (2000–2003), Dangerous Davies in The Last Detective (2003–2007) and Henry Sharpe in Law & Order: UK (2011–2014).
