Written by Andrew Davies, A Very Peculiar Practice is set in the eccentric world of Lowlands University, where brilliant doctor, but disastrous human being, Stephen Daker (Peter Davison) arrives from a broken marriage with a phobia of being touched.

At Lowlands, Daker discovers his boss, Dr Jock Macannon, is a drunk, his colleagues are a radical lesbian and a squash-obsessed fascist, and he's being haunted by nuns.

Luckily, salvation, and some degree of sanity come in the form of police student Lyn Tuttle and his mathematician flatmate Chen Sung Yau. They offer humanity when he gets caught in the crossfire between Bob Buzzard and Rose Marie, and when the outside world of government cuts and investment threaten the medical centre and the University as a whole.

Series two features Daker replacing Jock as the head of the medical centre and falling for the charms Polish art historian Grete Grotowska. This time conflict came in the form of the new vice-chancellor, right-wing American Jack B Daniels.

A TV movie in the Screen One strand followed in 1992. A Very Polish Practice features Daker and Grotowska married and living in a Warsaw ravaged by the fall of Communism. Again Daker clashed with Bob Buzzard, there on a business trip.