All Creatures Great and Small star Samuel West opened up about filming Siegfried Farnon's emotional reunion with his brother Tristan (Callum Woodhouse), who returns to Darrowby in the upcoming episode of series five.
Speaking to HELLO! and other press about the moving moment, which sees Tristan meet his brother on the railway station platform, the actor said it was one of his favourite scenes to film, along with Tristan's goodbye in series three, which saw the young vet leave his hometown to serve in the Royal Army Veterinary Corps.
"They're two of my favourite scenes," said Samuel. "So it was shot by the same director who did the farewell.
"We were on that famous platform where Jenny Agutter says, 'Daddy, my daddy' at the end of The Railway Children. And I make no claims for how moving this scene is but I can't watch The Railway Children without crying at that bit.
© Helen Williams/ Channel 5 / Playground Television UK"It was a really beautiful, beautiful scene," he continued, adding that while working with moving trains in a period drama setting is "never easy", the scene was "very nicely shot".
"There's a bit when we give each other a huge hug and then I shake his hand and go back to checking that he's got all his limbs. I'm quite pleased with that scene," said the 58-year-old.
© Helen Williams/ Channel 5 / Playground Television UKRevealing what fans can expect from Tristan's return to Darrowby, Samuel said that Siegfried and his younger brother team up as they take on irritable farmer Mr Biggins' suffering goat.
"Tristan is an almost immediately annoying person," he said. "And when we go and see Biggins, this famously irascible farmer played brilliantly by Nick Asbury, then we find out that we still work as a double act. We still got it."
© Channel 5Samuel went on to reveal Siegfried's concerns about Tristan's well-being after experiencing the horrors of war. "But the thing that is still troubling is that Siegfried had a fairly terrible first war. He returned seeing terrible suffering, particularly to animals, and had friends in the profession who killed themselves many years later.
'Tristan is all breeze and joy and drink and the club, " he continued. "And I suspect that there must be something under that, but he won't talk about it, and it's a very interesting thing to play because Callum is very good at that, and because subtext is something that you know the series does well. So how well he really is and how well he seems is to be discovered," he teased.
© Helen Williams / Playground Television / Channel 5Callum also spoke about Tristan and Siegfried's reunion ahead of the new series, revealing that the brothers are "on a much more even playing field now" having both served in the war. "It really does not take long for them to descend back into the typical brotherly relationship that they have of bickering – it’s almost like a married couple with the two of them," he told Channel 5, adding: "They love each other so deeply, but just can’t stop themselves from arguing and bickering with each other."
