Gemma Saunders

Peak Practice is a British drama series about a GP surgery in Cardale — a small fictional town in the Derbyshire Peak District — and the doctors who worked there. It ran on ITV from 10 May 1993 to 30 January 2002 and was one of their most successful series at the time. It originally starred Kevin Whately as Dr Jack Kerruish, Amanda Burton as Dr Beth Glover and Simon Shepherd as Dr Will Preston, though the roster of doctors would change many times over the course of the series. Cardale was based on the Staffordshire village of Longnor for the final series, but was previously based in the Derbyshire village of Crich, although certain scenes were filmed at other nearby Derbyshire towns and villages, most notably Matlock, Belper and Ashover.

Stitch Head was the first creature brought to 'almost life' by mad professor Erasmus. In the years since, he’s become nursemaid to the master’s ever-growing menagerie of neglected creatures, tasked with teaching them to suppress their 'inner monster' and hide out in the castle — away from prying eyes and itchy pitchfork fingers, of the village mob in the valley below. But when grubby circus impresario Fulbert Freakfinder arrives offering Stitch Head a starring role in his freak show, our hero is tempted by the promise of love and acceptance.

The camera turns, slowly; we are near a hill, in a world where everything is absurd. The "voice actors" recite a banal script overlapping, in perfect synchrony, the actors' mouths and gestures. The setting and costumes have no relation to the scene. A voice actor recites Shakespeare instead of the script; the confusion continues when the scene ends.