This is about caring, worrying and loving your nearest and dearest
IT’S set in the late 1950s, but there’s a chance new period drama The Larkins will also make viewers feel nostalgic for the early 1990s, when ITV brought us The Darling Buds of May, starring David Jason, Pam Ferris and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Like The Larkins, it was based on the books by
H. E. Bates about a loving, unconventional family who have created their own rural idyll, but new stars Bradley Walsh and Joanna Scanlan will be hoping to quickly put all thoughts of the previous adaption out of our heads.
Actor and The Chase host Bradley, 61 – who can also be seen making another much-loved show, Blankety Blank, his own over on BBC1 on Saturdays – thinks that while it may hark back to the past, The Larkins is perfectly timed.
As a new Darling Buds of May adaptation lands on ITV, asks, will it be perfick? He says: “This is a big family always looking for a deal, and values show – this is about why not? caring, worrying and loving “He cares about his family, your nearest and dearest. he loves his family being “Which, in these strange around him, he loves the fact and worrying times we’ve all that he’s the sort of dad you’d had recently, seems to be have wanted as well... for more prevalent and has example he lets his kids drive become more important than this truck! ever. I think the pandemic has “He is a genuinely nice man, brought a lot of people closer there’s not a bad bone in his together and they’ve realised body.” how much they miss people in It’s a real family affair as their lives and to stop rushing Bradley’s son Barney will play around, stop chasing and village policeman PC Harness. spend more time with your Joanna, star of The Thick of family.” It and No Offence, plays Ma Bradley also hopes we’ll Larkin. She became a fan of want to spend time with the free-wheeling, fun-loving his character, saying: Kentish family aged just 14. “Pop Larkin is “I was poorly and had to the kind of man stay in bed for a couple of you’d like to weeks,” she says. “My mum spend a day, bought me a little box set an evening, a which had the five books in it weekend with in called The Larkin Saga. the pub. If you “I still have that collection of want anything he books to this day. can get it, he’s “I absolutely fell in love with
RACHAEL POPOW
the Larkins. They put two fingers up at everything that didn’t count and embraced everything that did. The spirit of the books – here’s a family who are vulgar, ribald, fun, but with a wise way of life – really appealed to me and cheered me up as I got better.
“I felt I could get through anything with Ma Larkin holding my hand. She’s loving and warm but real and flawed.
“She’s not a victim, just a happy woman who’s spreading the love, someone who knows that kindness is the solution to most of life’s problems.”
This adaptation is written by Simon Nye (of The Durrells and Finding Alice) and in the opening episode, the family is looking forward to the May Day Fair. Unfortunately, there are some clouds on the Larkins’ horizon as the taxman comes calling, and daughter Mariette (Bridgerton’s Sabrina Bartlett, in the role that made Catherine Zeta-Jones a star) has some bombshell news.
The Larkins starts on Sunday, ITV, 8pm