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Andrew Davies: A Very Peculiar Practice

Andrew DaviesTuesday 16th March 2010

Screening & Discussion: Warwick Arts Centre Conference Room, 5:45pm
Drinks Reception:
Warwick Arts Centre National Grid Room, 7:15pm

Award-winning screenwriter Andrew Davies (Pride and Prejudice, Middlemarch, Bridget Jones' Diary, Bleak House) will be screening and discussing clips from his BAFTA-winning 1986 series, A Very Peculiar Practice. There will be a drinks reception afterwards at 7:15pm in the Arts Centre National Grid Room.

Andrew Davies taught at Warwick for 20 years, and A Very Peculiar Practice is shaped by his immersion in the university. The series is set on the campus of Lowlands University, a 1960s university beset by leaky roofs and cut-throat managerialism. Stephen Daker – the 'New Man' - is a fresh-faced, well-meaning new doctor at the university health practice, Jock McCann, his boss, is a passionate holist and whisky-drinker fond of diagnosing the psychosocial ailments of his patients, colleagues, and indeed the University as a whole. Rose Marie is a feminist who believes that illness is something that men do to women. Bob Buzzard is far more interested in his computer and its diagnostic potential than his patients. And all four are under pressure from the Thatcherite policies embodied in Ernest Hemingway, the Vice-Chancellor.

A Very Peculiar Practice is a delightfully biting satire of universities in an age of Thatcher-led cutbacks; of sexual politics in a context marked by both feminism and the radical psychiatric theories of RD Laing; of the language of 'phallocentrism' in newly emerging academic disciplines; and of both psychoanalytic and pharmaceutical approaches to patients. All of this with a lightness of touch that ensured a hit series.

Come and hear Andrew Davies talk about the genesis of this series and its relationship to Warwick University – and have drinks and a chat with him afterwards!

There is no need to register for this event. Attendance is FREE and all are welcome to attend. For more information email K.Angel@warwick.ac.uk.