A Very Peculiar Practice is a British surreal black-comedy drama set in the health centre of a university, produced by the BBC, which ran for two series in 1986 and 1988.

It was written by Andrew Davies and was inspired by his experiences as a lecturer at the University of Warwick, and it has been interpreted as a commentary on contemporary trends in education.

A leitmotif is the commercialisation of higher education in Britain following the government cuts of the early 1980s, with the Vice-Chancellor Ernest Hemmingway (John Bird) trying to woo Japanese investors in the face of resistance from the academic old guard.

In the first series, Daker had a romance with a post-graduate policewoman, Lyn Turtle (Amanda Hillwood), after she rescued him from drowning in the swimming pool.

In the second series Daker has been promoted to head of the centre, and falls in love with Polish academic Grete Grotowska (Joanna Kanska).

Rose Marie also seeks romantic involvement with Grotowska, whilst at the same time sleeping with the VC Jack Daniels in her bid to oust Daker and become head of the medical centre herself.

In the sequel television film, A Very Polish Practice (1992), Daker and Grete live together in Poland, where he struggles with the former Communist country's antiquated health service.

[7] In a deliberate case of art imitating life, the final episode of the first series introduces a character named Ron Rust (Joe Melia), a writer who, for reasons that he does not quite understand, owes the BBC £17,000 and is trying to write a black comedy about a university to pay the debt.

Bob tries to turn the clinic into a massage parlour, Grete's boyfriend wants to kill her, Rose Marie starts a male sexuality group and the campus is invaded by animal rightists.