The trend for reviving vintage dramas appears to be waning after it emerged that All Creatures Great and Small prequel Young James Herriot has been axed by the BBC.

The much-loved vet has been put out to pasture days after the BBC took the axe to Upstairs Downstairs, which lost million of viewers across two series and struggled in the face of ITV's Downton Abbey.

The BBC has decided not to recommission a planned Herriot spin-off that would have documented his early years in Glasgow.

"Young James Herriot will not be coming back," said a spokesman for the BBC. "It was a three-part event piece stripped across the week before Christmas."

Young James Herriot, which starred Iain de Caestecker, saw the Yorkshire Dales swapped for urban deprivation in Glasgow as the drama followed the young vet as he learned his trade at college.

It aired in three parts just before Christmas, with the first episode pulling in 6 million viewers.

Its second episode drew 4.3 million and in January Ben Stephenson, the controller of drama commissioning at the BBC, said no decision had been taken about whether the All Creatures Great and Small prequel would return for a second run

The inspiration for Young James Herriot originally came from Johnny Byrne whose credits included All Creatures Great and Small and Doctor Who.

It was devised by Byrne and consultant producer Kate Croft and produced by Shed Media, whose credits include Waterloo Road.

Sadly Byrne died in 2008 while the show was in development and it was co-written by Shed Productions senior executives Eileen Gallagher and Ann McManus.

In its heyday, All Creatures Great and Small, based on the diaries of real-life vet Alf Wight, who wrote under the pseudonym James Herriot, pulled in audiences of about 13 million.

But that was between 1977 and 1990, before the explosion in digital channels and the internet. It was broadcast by the BBC between 1977 and 1990.

Young James Herriot was part of a trend for telling the backstory of popular TV and film characters.

ITV has made a prequel to Inspector Morse called Endeavour, while the BBC put the early years of Only Fools and Horses in the spotlight in Rock & Chips. And from the US there is a plan for a prequel to Sex and the City.

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