User Reviews

A couple of other reviewers have complained about this series not being faithful to Flora Thompson's books - thank god for that, is all I can say. The books were among the most dreary, plodding tales I have ever read, and they left me depressed for days. I couldn't see the bucolic charm for all the squalid poverty and starving.

However, the series has been a pleasant surprise. I watched a few minutes of the first episode because I'm a big Julia Sawalha fan, and couldn't believe how she managed to inject a huge dose of humor and likability into the whole thing. Plus I think the 'vignette' approach which made the books so boring actually makes the series quite good - each episode can focus on one or two of the little anecdotes of the story.

There's no question they've sanitized the visuals - I'm quite certain that the 'real' Lark Rise people didn't have actual staircases in their houses, or much in the way of pictures on the walls (in fact I seem to recall the books making it clear that the houses had ladders to lofts, a paucity of candles, and no gas lamps, as they do in the TV show). And people have more teeth than they probably did in real life.

But who wants to see toothless people living in dark, dank sheds, anyway? I do agree that the Dawn French character is misplaced and/or overdone - I know she's supposed to be a quite literal representation of the big-heartedness of the cheerful poor person, but she ends up seeming an awful lot like the nut-job she plays in Jam and Jerusalem, and ultimately just an example of the stereotype of how stupidity, irresponsibility and poverty are inextricable.

If you don't like costume drama, this isn't going to change your mind. But it's an engaging adaptation of a singularly unengaging book, and if you've ever liked Julia Sawalha in anything, you should give this a try.

This is (was) my new wind down at night show before bed...however.... I roll my eyes throughout. Ending season 2, I'm not sure how much longer I can hang in there.

The writing is so obvious and obtuse, at times, that it hurts. These poor actors who have to make these soapy silly plot lines make sense. Most of them do a great job of remaining real people, but some are becoming Caricatures of themselves. It's not their fault, they are written on the nose, and directed and produced in that direction. (The most cartoon like character has left the show, thankfully. The writing for her was so over the top! I felt sorry for her. Why are obese women often written as obnoxious?) I'm also not sure why Dorcas now whisper talks. My husband walked in the room yesterday and said, "why is she whispering?"

Every single episode someone does something so out of character in such a large manner right at the start, so then I know ah...that's where we're going-back in the opposite direction.

Tonight's episode was so dumb, it prompted me to write this review. It switched back and forth so bizarrely and made no sense at all.

The hotelier (who's in love with Dorcas) finds out he has a son. He's thrilled, but opts to keep him in some boarding school. Dorcas then starts, inexplicably, hearing a child cry (that ain't there). Is she psychic now? Did she have a bad childhood? (Not that they're mentioned). She runs to the hotelier, very upset and breathless, asking him to check on the school. The hotelier yells at her, bizarrely. "How dare you...?!" kind of prattle. Dorcas checks on the school herself and it's horrible. She tells the hotelier this - he at first yells at her, inexplicably, then urgently changes his tune and tells her to wire that he'll pick up the kid ASAP! He's then injured and hospitalized with a head injury. The kid stays with Dorcas for a couple of days. The hotelier checks himself out of the hospital early while still very very sick, inexplicably. He comes to see the kid at Dorcas's, faints, comes to and yells at the kid, inexplicably. Since the hotelier has always been VERY kind we can only assume it's due to his head injury. But ...alas....nope. The next day he moves back to London and leaves the kid permanently with Dorcas!!!

What?!?!

And never even asks Dorcas, um...do you want a kid??? He just leaves her a note. "If he ever wants to know me, I'm in London." So she's what, got to hire poirot to find him???

AND the writers made this HUUUUUUGE display of him signing over all his hotels and money so he has no place to live, and no job in London AND his only last job or home is the hotel in candleford (which was barley hanging on the episode before) and he just leaves it to be run byyyyyyyy....???? Um....no one.

It was so weird and so stupid. Can you imagine someone taking in your kid for a few days when your injured and then you just move?!?!

It's often totally unrealistic in little things too. Dorcus is So ill she collapses unconscious on the floor, Queenie arrives and in 30 minutes she's up and about and well.

(Of course this was all to show the hoteliers love for Dorcas, who fetched Queenie). I wish we had that flu remedy in 2021!!

I guess there's not much that can go on in this little town so the writers create drama. But does it have to be stupid illogics breaking established strong character traits??

And as I said, I kept watching it. Until last night. Now it's a car crash I can't look away from. I may do one more episode just to see if the Hotelier comes back(?), but I am shopping for another BBC show.

Ita too bad. It's innocent and nothing really bad happens, except the writing.

I know that this is a very lengthy review but I hope you will read and enjoy it.

The BBC has long been known as the undisputed world leaders when producing period drama for the TV.

When you consider the absolutely wonderful period dramas Auntie Beeb has produced over many, many years, it is an accolade indeed to be able to say that Lark Rise To Candleford is by far the very best they have ever produced.

Although so far I have only watched series one and have reviewed that, I cannot wait for the second series to come out on DVD.

I am shocked and dismayed that this drama appears to have been only nominated for a single award, which it duly won.

Every part of this production was immaculate from the script, the actors, the production, the direction and finally but definitely not least, the set and costumes.

SPOILER BEGINS:

Lark Rise To Candleford is the story of life in Lark Rise, a small village about 8 miles from Candleford, a small town.

It tells of the hardship of Lark Rise and about life in the somewhat more affluent Candleford.

The two story-lines are wonderfully intertwined.

SPOILER ENDS

When you consider the choice of actors selected for the various parts it is amazing that each and every one of them were given the most perfect part.

Although it is virtually impossible to single any individual out as the best I would like to mention a few of them.

SPOILER BEGINS:

Dawn French was cast as Caroline Arless, a mother of several children, with one on the way, whose husband was away at sea. She was more than a little partial to a good flagon of ale and this was eventually her downfall when she was carted off to debtors prison. Don't fret though, she came back. I cannot see anyone else being able to fill this part.

Liz Smith was her usual and impeccable self playing the part of Zillah, the housekeeper to the Postmistress in Candleford. Liz was 86 when she appeared in this series and has lost none of her extraordinary acting abilities. I can only describe her as perfection personified.

Julia Sawalha played Dorcas Lane, the Candleford Postmistress. She was oh so prim and proper and cared for everyone and helped anyone who was in trouble. She grew up with Timothy Midwinter, now Sir Timothy and the Squire of Candleford. She loved him and he her. Sir Timothy asked her to marry him but she refused as she felt it wrong that she should marry someone who she considered her 'better', but they still loved each other even though he has now married someone else.

Linda Bassett and Karl Johnson who played wife and husband Queenie and Twister Turrill were perfectly cast in their respective roles. It was a joy to see how well they interacted with each other.

Matilda Ziegler and Victoria Hamilton played the sisters Pearl and Ruby Pratt. It was as though these two sisters were literally joined at the hip and they did everything together, they even dressed in the same clothes for the most part, even though they were the proprietors of the Candleford milliners shop.. They played their parts as the Candleford busy bodies wonderfully and were convinced that they were better than anyone in Candleford and thought the residents of Lark Rise were the lowest of the low, even though they started from extremely humble beginnings themselves.

Last but not least there is Laura Timmins played by Olivia Hallinan. Laura was sent from Lark Rise to Candleford in order to work in the the post office and to better herself. The story is narrated from the writings in her journal. I have a feeling we will be seeing a lot more of Olivia.

SPOILER ENDS

I could have something to say about each actor who appeared in this drama as they all played their parts superlatively.

Finally the direction by Alan Grint, John Greening, Charles Palmer and Marc Jobst was again absolutely marvellous and you would never realise that there had been so many directors.

It is plain to me that everyone of the cast and crew got on extremely well together, which can be seen by the way this series was so wonderfully produced and acted.

The final thing I would like to say is that it is a great pity that 10 is the highest mark I can give Lark Rise To Candleford.

This series is absolutely the finest set of programmes I have ever seen on British TV in all my years of watching.

I got hooked on Downton Abbey, but Larkrise to Candleford knocks spots of it.

I do not want to say too much, it's just such a pleasure to watch, and listen to, every word spoken has meaning, the use of the English language is superb, every character is strong, every character has his or her own place in the series.

In its own way this series represents a little Bible. The goodness in everyday life if only people today were'nt so detached from each other.

And also sadly is a huge reflection of how far the Western World has sunk in so many ways over the decades.

I've ticked spoilers, but I don't think there are any.

I started watching this series a couple of months ago. Good acting, sets, cinematography, etc... but there was something about the basic ongoing plot that didn't seem real or believable.

A recent episode (Season 4, Ep. 5) brought this into plain light when Dorkus began talking to the other women about more or less "allowing" the men of Lark Rise to believe that they possess feminine qualities and pretending not to be the superior species that they truly are.

Now I was able to put my finger on the lack believability. In spite of the good acting, interesting stories and superior production quality, there was one important ingredient missing in the town of Lark Rise, unless it appeared fleetingly in some earlier episode that I missed; there is not a single competent, righteous, stable male, capable of existing without the direction and supervision of the town's women... that is, unless they're "assumed" to be there, just not appearing in the series.

Sure, some of the women have there flaws, but not so much so that they are unable to rain supreme over the town's mix of chronically flawed men who, without female guidance, would flounder haplessly and probably starve to death. I guess it's a good thing that those poor men have all those women to correct and redirect them repeatedly throughout each episode!

Seriously though... Couldn't you guys at the BBC create even one male character that the people of Lark Rise could actually admire and look up to... without having him come apart at the seams before then end of the episode?

Am a U.S.viewer, watching Series 1 on an all-region DVD player. I ordered this series as something my elderly mother might enjoy and have become engrossed myself. Sounding initially like a British variant on LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE, CANDLEFORD turns out to be a rich spectacle which discovers complexities in itself after pleasant but lightweight opening installments and by episode 4 becomes something altogether finer (I've seen only 1-7 so far). I think it not entirely accidental that this same fourth episode engineers a lengthy hiatus for LARK SPUR's most egregious blemish, the already oft-slammed Dawn French as the hamlet's debtor-reprobate. French isn't distractingly familiar in the U.S. but her lazy anachronistic performance, straight out of the classic "Coarse Acting" handbook, is an irritant just the same. Might as well note the other flaws that persist, noted in the more critical IMDb critiques: the usual over-explicit music; some wobbly continuity from one episode to the next (particularly notable in the lack of carryover after the milliner-sisters' traumatic reunion with their father); the disregard for the 18 mile separation of communities so forcefully laid-out in episode 1 and subsequently ignored; and, yes, the absence of squalor. Can't comment on the adaptation's disregard for the source-book since I haven't read it.

But lordy, how much else excels! The writing, encompassing parlor-protocol and pub-chatter, has Dickensian swagger. If LARK SPUR's creators disembarked from the original text, they found their independent stride within a few traversals of their 20-or-so characters. Note how the Welsh postman, an evangelical stereotype and already tiresome within the first hour, in Episode 5 has a spiritual crisis, conveyed in a layman-sermon whose earnestness emits a skittering undertone of near-madness (wonderfully performed by Mark Heap). The porcelain lady-of-the-manor of Eps. 1-2 by 6-7 emerges as a tragic heroine. Twister, Lark Spur's aged comic layabout and scrounger, in Episode 6 has recall of a long-dead sister he imagines come back to haunt him in scenes as rapturously sad and true to senescent remorse as any great tragic work (Karl Johnson, an actor I've never noted before, is extraordinary). More than simply showcasing the series' mostly wonderful cast, the collective of directors grows increasingly muscular in their framing of scenes as LARK SPUR progresses: a complex moment in Ep. 7, in which the squire's wife watches her husband across the street and submits to the goading of shopwomen she dislikes, imagining the worst, is shot with an economic forcefulness that moots distinctions between TV and cinematic filming. Nothing "twee" about craft of that order-- nor about the series itself, once past its establishing episodes.

Yet subtleties noted here are secondary to something LARK SPUR has in fixed place from the start: Julia Sawalha's post-mistress, and her rapport with lifetime friend and village squire Ben Miles, an attenuated near-romance that in abstract sounds an embarrassment-- two terrific actors who appear to realize they have found gorgeous grown-up roles in the unlikeliest of projects, and like the rest of the production's cast/crew, perform as if BBC's calculations about "Sunday night programing" wholly underestimated their work. I cannot push these Reg. 2 programs at friends, who haven't the equipment to play them, and so I can only enthuse here. This is beautiful serial television.