Samuel West on ‘All Creatures Great and Small’ Finale: ‘I Really Like That Siegfried’s Got These Depths’
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the All Creatures Great and Small Season 3 finale, “Merry Bloody Christmas.”]
The Farnon brothers are huggers now.
As the third season of the Masterpiece drama All Creatures Great and Small concluded Sunday night on PBS, Samuel West’s Siegfried Farnon bid farewell to his younger brother Tristan (Callum Woodhouse) with a surprisingly demonstrative embrace. Tristan, expecting a simple handshake as he was about to board a train and leave England’s Yorkshire Dales to begin his World War II military service, appeared shocked and then overcome with emotion at the gesture.
“Are we huggers now?” he asked, to which Siegfried declared, “Yes, we bloody well are. I’m so damn proud of you.”
West’s and Woodhouse’s heartfelt performances were high points of an impressive season, set in 1939, that began with a joyful wedding for James and Helen (Nicholas Ralph and Rachel Shenton) and ventured into weightier territory as war broke out in Europe.
Siegfried faced unresolved issues from his past. As an army veterinarian at the end of World War I, he had to shoot some of the horses who had served alongside the soldiers because transporting them back to Britain was too costly. He spent the last episode, set during the Christmas season, trying to protect Tristan from having to witness the bloodshed that he saw, even at the expense of beloved horse River.
For a show about rural veterinarians and the animals they look after, the third season “has been so much more about the people,” says West. “I really like that Siegfried’s got these depths and that they’ve come to the fore.”
A veteran of such films as Howards End and Darkest Hour, West balances Siegfried’s excessive outbursts with beautifully understated emotional moments. In the finale, he had some of both, and they came into conflict as Siegfried, who always puts an animal’s welfare first, seemed prepared to jeopardize River’s life by allowing him to run in a race he wasn’t fit for. The reason? The horse’s owner offered to use his connections to keep Tristan out of the army, even though the young veterinarian — who was raised by his brother and his late wife after their parents died — had volunteered to serve.
West says his character had “a harsh lesson to learn, and I think he always knew that it was going to have to happen. Siegfried’s been made, as all of us are, by his mistakes, and he’s not allowing Tristan to make his. He wants to look after him and keep him in tissue paper, and you can’t.”
But the fallout from Siegfried’s scheme brought about a long-needed heart-to-heart between the brothers, whose 19-year age difference makes their relationship akin to that of father and son. As West and Woodhouse laid bare their characters’ pain — Siegfried because he felt their parents favored Tristan; Tristan because he felt he could never live up to Siegfried’s expectations — the emotions were palpable but never overwrought.
Samuel West and Callum Woodhouse (Playground Entertainment and MASTERPIECE)
“We’re English people living in the 1930s. We tend not to talk about our emotions and when we do, it has to really matter,” West says. “Americans sometimes say, ‘You’re so uptight,’ and we go, yeah, it’s what makes some of our scenes quite interesting because there are so many things to kick against.”
Speaking of keeping feelings under wraps, the episode also contained a couple of noteworthy moments between Siegfried and his indispensable employee Audrey Hall (Anna Madeley). A wreck after his talk with Tristan, Siegfried slid his hand across the table to hers, but instead of grasping it, she left to look for her friend Gerald (Will Thorp) among their Christmas party guests. Siegfried appeared stunned when he witnessed Mrs. H and Gerald kissing.
Plenty of viewers would like to see Siegfried and Mrs. Hall romantically linked, but West isn’t taking sides. “I couldn’t say what will or might or should happen,” he says, “but working with Anna Madeley is one of the great joys of life. She’s extraordinary and I’ve known and loved her for years.”
As for the four-legged costars he worked with in Season 3, West calls Derek, the fluffy Pekingese who plays pampered pooch Tricki Woo, “an absolutely remarkable actor,” adding, “I do feel very strongly that he’s read the scripts. He responds to the mood of a scene extraordinarily well. If he feels that the mood is upbeat and comic, he’ll be fast and funny, and if it needs to be slow and thoughtful, he’ll be calmer.”
Anna Madeley, Samuel West and Derek (Playground Entertainment and MASTERPIECE)
West had lobbied for the show to include a rather unusual pet in its menagerie of animals — a rat — which is how Siegfried ended up with the adorable Volonel, who’s become something of a service animal to him. “I’m completely comfortable around rats,” says West, who has owned a few in the past. “Occasionally we have to clean a bit of wee or poo off my shoulder, but they’re just delightful animals to have around.”
More stories for both humans and animals are coming: Season 4 starts filming in March.
All Creatures Great and Small, Season 3, PBS app and PBS Masterpiece Prime Video channel
