Larkins plunged into crisis over fears second star may quit weeks before filming
THE Darling Buds Of May remake is set for another blow after it emerged that actor Tok Stephen, who plays Cedric ‘Charley’ Charlton, may be quitting the troubled ITV comedy drama.
His expected departure comes shortly after Sabrina Bartlett, who played his on-screen girlfriend Mariette in The Larkins, announced she would not be returning for the second series which is due to begin filming in Kent next month.
Our report last week highlighted the fact that TV bosses were running out of time to replace her – while a downcast Sabrina herself was seen out jogging.
Programme bosses now face a race against time to cast replacement actors for the central roles alongside Bradley Walsh, 61, and Joanna Scanlan, 60, as Pop and Ma Larkin.
Objective Fiction, which produces the drama, declined to comment but a source told The Mail on Sunday: ‘This situation is far from ideal for those trying to get the second series ready to start filming in six weeks.
‘The programme is already in preproduction but they now need a new Mariette and maybe a Charley, too. Then, of course, there is the issue of the viewers getting used to their replacements. Nobody was expecting this.’
Stephen, who graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 2017, has also appeared in the ITV drama Grantchester and the BBC series Holby City and Silent Witness.
His role as Charley in The Larkins was made famous by Philip Franks in the original TV adaptation of H.E. Bates’s novel.
In an interview last year, he spoke fondly of his fellow cast members, saying: ‘Bradley Walsh is hilarious and Sabrina Bartlett is lovely to work with, and I’ve always really admired Joanna Scanlan. I think it’s any actor’s dream to shoot in a location where you don’t have to imagine your surroundings. We were able to live it.’
The Daily Mail revealed last month that Ms Bartlett, 30, had quit The Larkins. Amid claims of tension on set, her publicist insisted the decision was due to ‘scheduling clashes’, but there has been no subsequent announcement about her working commitments. The episode is also understood to have been a factor in her decision to leave her agent, the London-based Independent Talent Group, on whose website she no longer appears.
While Ms Bartlett had previously enjoyed roles in the ITV drama Victoria and Netflix’s Bridgerton, many believed that her casting as Mariette offered the potential of emulating Catherine Zeta-Jones – who played the eldest Larkin child in the original TV adaptation in the early 1990s before breaking into Hollywood.
The first series of The Larkins, which aired late last year, drew an average audience of 5.5million viewers and received broadly positive reviews from TV critics.