Following the success of the award-winning BBC television series, Bill Kenwright presents a fresh new revival of Keith Dewhurst's original stage adaptation of the much loved Lark Rise to Candleford. Based on the first book of Flora Thompson's trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels, this heart warming play was first performed at London’s National Theatre in 1978 and was nominated for two Olivier awards.
The superb company of fifteen actors and musicians includes Sara Crowe (from Calendar Girls and Bedroom Farce in the West End and film credits including Four Weddings and a Funeral); Eric Richard (who played the beloved Sgt. Bob Cryer in The Bill for twenty years) Jonathan Ansell (the lead singer from X Factor sensation G4 who has just completed a hugely successful national tour of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Whistle Down The Wind); Becci Gemmell (best known Joyce Fisher in the BBC drama Land Girls) and Christopher Beeny (Last of the Summer Wine, Upstairs, Downstairs.) Music is by folk icon Ashley Hutchings, founder of Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and The Albion Band. He created the music for the original National Theatre production, and he returns to supervise the music for this new revival.
Seen through the eyes of young Laura Timms, the play follows a day in the life and relationships of the farm workers, craftsmen and gentry of the fictional hamlet of Lark Rise at the end of the nineteenth century. It is the first day of harvest, and the villagers celebrate with the simple pleasures of music, song and dance, creating a moving and evocative picture of a forgotten England.
'Gives you a nostalgic hankering for simpler things' Daily Telegraph
'It will send most spectators out wiser and happier human beings...one of those rare theatrical occasions with a genuine healing quality' The Guardian