She’s perfick: Larkins’ new leading lady after actress quit over ‘rift’
SHE is a relatively unknown actress with just a handful of acting credits on her CV.
But now Joelle Rae has been chosen to play the eldest child Mariette in the second series of The Larkins.
The 21-year-old is to replace Sabrina Bartlett in the popular show and will star alongside Bradley Walsh and Joanna Scanlan as her parents Pop and Ma Larkin.
Ms Bartlett is understood to have quit following a disagreement on set, despite her publicist stating in
February that the decision was due to ‘scheduling clashes’.
It was reported yesterday that the 30-year-old left The Larkins because she made a complaint about her costar Tok Stephen’s behaviour to ITV.
According to The Mail on Sunday, the broadcaster launched an investigation into the allegation, but ITV would not confirm this.
Stephen, who plays Mariette’s love interest in the comedy drama, was yesterday confirmed to be returning for the second series. ‘Tok is back but we are sad and surprised that Sabrina is not,’ one member of The Larkins team told the newspaper. ‘Sabrina loved the show. It is a shame she has decided to leave.’
Ms Bartlett took on the role that launched Catherine Zeta-Jones’s career after ITV announced a remake of The Darling Buds Of May. But now Ms Rae will take on the iconic part. The young actress previously appeared in Netflix thriller series Get Even.
The Larkins follows a working-class family enjoying rural life in 1950s Kent, southeast England. Walsh, 61, and Ms Scanlan, 60, took over from David Jason and Pam Ferris, who starred in the original hit ’90s adaptation of HE Bates’s novels.
The family is also made up of young actors Liam Middleton as Montgomery, Summer and Sienna Miller as Zinnia and Petunia, Lola Shepelev as Victoria and Lydia Page as Primrose.
The forthcoming series sees a new family, the Jerebohms, arrive in the village, who are soon at war with the Larkins. Series two airs later this year.
‘It is a shame she decided to leave’