Samuel West has shared a heartwarming tradition from the set of All Creatures Great and Small, revealing that cast members with speaking roles each add a song to an annual playlist played in the make-up truck.
West, who plays Siegfried Farnon in the hit drama, appeared on Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh on October 25 and discussed life behind the scenes on the show. The seventh series recently concluded, with Siegfried facing a difficult choice between marrying Dorothy or declaring his feelings for housekeeper Mrs Hall. A Christmas special is due to air later this year.
A DJ ambition and a musical ritual
During the conversation, West mentioned that he had always wanted to be a DJ, a career he still aspires to. When presenter Alan Titchmarsh asked what attraction being a DJ held over acting, West joked: "I'm tiresomely interested in my own musical taste and I want to foist it upon everyone else."
He then disclosed the on-set practice: "I control the speaker in the All Creatures Great and Small make-up truck first-thing in the morning and I release a playlist every year which I'm about to do for this season. Fairly eclectic stuff that keeps us up."
Honouring cast members who have died
West explained the rule behind the playlist: "We have a rule that anybody that gets a speaking role gets to put one thing on it, and whenever anyone dies... so we put a Neil Sedaka song on this year, next year we'll put Dolly Parton because she died in the gap. So there are some nice memories in there and also stuff that I would never have thought of."
Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh airs Sunday mornings from 9.30am on ITV1 and ITVX. All Creatures Great and Small is available to stream on Channel 5.
