The Larkins
ITV’s new adaptation of HE Bates’s novel The Darling Buds of May boasts a pretty classy cast with two of the most reliable TV actors around – Joanna Scanlan and Bradley Walsh – filling the prime roles of Ma and Pop Larkin.
Hard to believe but it is now 30 years since the last time ITV adapted the novel for television in the early 1990s with David Jason and Pam Ferris as the happy couple living a life of bucolic splendour on their ramshackle farm with their brood of free-range children. Scanlan and Walsh more than live up to the high standards set by their predecessors and they also appear to be having a lot of fun.
Set in an always sunny Kent in the 1950s, it follows the adventures of the Larkins and their offspring. Eldest daughter Mariette (Sabrina Bartlett) is looking to broaden her horizons, but then love may persuade her to stay...
It verges on the cheesy fairly frequently but for total, gentle escapism – and let’s face it, there is lot to want to escape from at the moment – this is pretty hard to beat.