Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial

Subject: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Fliss
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 04:06 PM

I watched the first episode last night and really enjoyed it.. I dont tend to watch long running serials as I usually miss episodes.

Yes I know I could video the series, but Ive never learned how to used the wretched recorder. Thats what I had kids for and now Ive have grown up and left home I have never bothered to learn.

... however... having got Virgin Media TV I can watch the repeats.

I started reading 'Lark Rise to Candleford' years ago when I was staying at a friends house. I never got to finish the book. So the series will come fresh.

I gather Dawn French's character isnt really like that in the book... but what the heck.

Must try and get the books in large print from the library for my mum, think she will like them.

Ive trawled the internet tonight for any info on the music used in the series.... any ideas who was playing fiddle?

cheers
fliss

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Splott Man
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 05:01 AM

I tuned in eagerly, having produced a production of Keith Dewhurst's musical play many years ago. I wasn't disappointed. I thought the look and feel captured the original very well, and the character of Dorcas was so close to our casting as to be uncanny.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 05:10 AM

The "original" Lark Rise To Candleford is not Keith Dewhurst's late 70s National Theatre drama production but a trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels published by Flora Thompson in 1945.

The only information that seems to be available about the music in current TV adaptation is that the composer is Julian Nott.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: greg stephens
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 05:30 AM

I never saw the play, which I gather had a lot of folkie stuff in it. My recollection of the book, admittedly of thirty years ago when I read it, was the lack of music. I seem to recall the author pointing out the lack of local music in the pubs, no fiddles or serpents or concertinas that I recall. Can anyone confirm this who has read it recently? I can't seem to find my copy to check.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Anne Lister
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 05:41 AM

I remember the NT productions with huge affection - they were two distinct plays, Lark Rise and Candleford. All in a promenade setting, which meant at one stage I was severely tempted to get involved in the action - when they were about to take an old chap off to the workhouse and I felt (as all of us did) that they shouldn't.

Missed Sunday's episode, though - we'll have to catch up with it later.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,Terry McDonald
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 05:56 AM

The Albion band did an excellent album based on the NT production. In the book(s) Flora Thompson recalls the old men singing in the pub and mentions one old chap who always sang The Outlandish Knight - it was his song and no one else would dare sing it.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 05:59 AM

Is it a bit Rosy English Village Life?

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Anne Lister
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 06:33 AM

Nope - not as I remember it, at any rate!

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,clockwatcher
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 07:38 AM

Well, I thought it was all a bit boring (and I'd been really looking forward to it).

What's more, it didn't seem to make any attempt to be anything like the book.

Oh well, back to the Albion Band album, then.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,Wyrd Sister
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 07:44 AM

'Rosy English Village Life?'

I don't think the books are, but the TV adaptation certainly struck me as that way inclined. Sunday night fire-and-slippers stuff.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,guest
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 10:27 AM

Martin Carthy was in the 70's theatre production

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 10:31 AM

I thought it was dreadful and can't decide which it most reminded me of, The Archers, The Larkins, Upstairs Downstairs or a bad adaptation of a Thomas Hardy novel.

The pity is that Lark Rise to Candleford is a wonderful book which should be read by everyone remotely interested in folk music.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Jeanie
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 11:20 AM

I haven't watched it yet. Exactly this time last year I was just starting rehearsals for a stage production of Keith Dewhurst's 'Candleford', which was just magic from beginning to end for all of us who were involved in it.

I *will* watch the TV adaptation, but I'm rather hesitant. From what I have seen of the publicity shots etc., (and confirmed by the comments on here about 'rosy English village life') it looks to me as if they have glamorised it rather much: all looking far too smart and far too many bright colours. We on-stage villagers were far from glamorous and the general costume colours were greys, blues, browns. (I will never forget my incredibly scratchy wool skirt). Even Miss Lane, although smarter, was not in any way 'fancy'. She and Sir Timothy were also rather older - which I think is correct for the storyline in the original. Why television has to do this glamourising beats me - do they think we will only watch costume dramas if everyone and everythng is pretty to look at ?

I wonder if they will have that wonderful conversation in the post office about slugs ? And will those old soldiers come in for their pension and talk about India ? Hope so - that is a lovely scene in the stage play.

- jeanie

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Splott Man
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 11:52 AM

I stand corrected. I shall be more careful with my words next time.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Jeanie
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 12:37 PM

Sorry, Splott Man- I have just re-read your first post. My own comments were not meant to be directed against yours in particular !

That's the thing about interpreting plays and characters for the stage/screen - even when they were originally written as plays, and even more so when they are adaptations of novels - there are many, many ways of staging them, and especially if the story or the characters or previous actors who have played the part are well loved and fondly remembered, it is a thankless task to try and please all of the people all of the time.

As a for instance, I'm looking forward to seeing Zoe Wanamaker and Simon Russell-Beale in "Much Ado" - far more 'elderly' for the parts than is usually cast, and I know that eyebrows must have been raised, but by all accounts, their age brings a whole new perspective on the play. Apparently, they also wear mixed period costume - some modern, some Elizabethan. Not sure what to think about that until I've seen it.

- jeanie

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 05:32 PM

There are some familiar faces from the Cottesloe in the BBC production. For instance, the actor playing the old boy who sings (?) played Jesus in the 1984/85 Mysteries, and the pub landlord doesn't do a bad Brian Glover! But it should be possible to dub on some National Production music on a version from BBC iplayer

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's Apprentice
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 05:37 PM

"But it should be possible to dub on some National Production music on a version from BBC iplayer "

and it would be completely out of place in the television production. There is a whole world of difference between the NT productions of Lark Rise and Candleford and that of the BBC version.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: greg stephens
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 05:46 PM

A comment earlier said anyone who is interested in folk music should read the book. As I mentioned, I can't find my copy. So, what is there about folk in the book? I can't remember much at all.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Alan Day
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 05:51 PM

I would be grateful for the words and history behind the song the old man was singing,It was not until he stopped singing did I recognise it.
When I am old and in my grave etc
I have an old concertina book and the person who compiled it late 19th Century has written these words on the front cover.
His writing was in ink and smudged and some of the words are not easy to read.
Thanks
Al

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: vectis
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 07:12 PM

Missed it! Is there going to be a repeat before Sunday evening anywhere?

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 07:26 PM

Vectis - signed repeat Thursday at 1.55am. 5303031 if you want to record it!

Kitty

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 09:03 PM

Alan: similar words to those can be found on the fly-leaves of thousands of old bibles and school books, samplers and the like (and gravestones, too), dating back several centuries. See at least one previous discussion here for numerous examples from the UK and America.

I don't think it was ever a song as such, though doubtless it has occasionally been sung. The tune used here struck me as a modern make-me-up from someone who isn't very familiar with traditional English music, but of course I could be quite wrong about that.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 03:34 AM

Lark Rise To Candleford on the BBC iPlayer.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 04:17 AM

greg stephens "A comment earlier said anyone who is interested in folk music should read the book. As I mentioned, I can't find my copy. So, what is there about folk in the book? I can't remember much at all."

Well, there's the famous chapter on The Wagon and Horses, which is directly concerned with the singing sessions which were held in that pub.

Over and above that, the book is about the transition of the village which Flora Thompson grew up in, from a small scale intimate community (the kind of society in which folksong traditions flourish), to becoming a part of modern society (where they don't).

And over and above that, folk music, like any social phenomenon, needs to be understood in terms of the people who created it. Reading books like LRTC can open a window on those people.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 05:24 AM

I, too, was looking forward to 'Lark Rise to Candleford' - but found it much too 'Laura Ashley' for my liking. Unfortunately, I only caught a couple of episodes of 'Cranford' - but that was much more convincing.

Watching 'LRTC' I got this sinking feeling that the old world of rural England is now, more or less, forgotten. I'm sure that someone will remind me that it was nasty, brutal and smelly (I've no doubt that it was!) but there was something rather admirable about it - particularly the labouring folk who worked so hard for pitiful wages and, if we think of them at all now, are dismissed as 'yokels' or 'bumpkins'. Their 'Old World' (by which I mean their inner lives, rather than their material circumstances) has been swept away - much like the once beautiful English countryside has been swept away.

If you want to understand them, and to understand where many of us came from, then you need to read the books of Flora Thomson, Richard Jeffries, W.H. Hudson (my personal favourite), Thomas Hardy, George Bourne, John Clare etc. And, of course, we should not forget the beautiful music that they left behind.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,Edthefolkie
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 06:38 AM

I thought Fred McCormick, Les and others hit various nails on the head in earlier posts. Poor Flora must be spinning like a top.

Most of it seemed (to me anyway) to be a pseudo Larkins/Upstairs Downstairs farrago directed at the post Songs of Praise Sunday evening audience, and no doubt also directed at sales abroad, where they love Ye Olde Englande fayre.

Apparently there are squillions of hour long episodes, which is a sure sign that substantial non-Flora Thompson padding will be added (probably lots of Dawn French Mummerset Earth Mother type nurdling, oh God).
   
The only good thing IMHO about this effort is that it appears to have prompted Ashley Hutchings to take a new Lark Rise show on the road.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,kurbee
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 11:08 AM

I understand the theme music for Larkrise to Candleford is written by
Julian Nott. Does anyone know what the title is or how to get hold of a copy?

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 11:19 AM

From Wallace & Gromit @ Aardman Animations, possibly?
All links to J Nott lead nowhere.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's Apprentice
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 12:09 PM

There's more than a few film music websites and a minimal Wikipedia page on said Julian Nott, but none of the are particularly helpful in identifying the music to Lark Rise to Candleford (the tv series. His official website has been down since November 2007.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 01:20 PM

"A comment earlier said anyone who is interested in folk music should read the book. As I mentioned, I can't find my copy. So, what is there about folk in the book? I can't remember much at all."
One of the characters 'Old David' sings Lord Lovel in the pub as I remember it.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,Terry McDonald
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 01:25 PM

Ah, it was 'Lord Lovel', was it? I remembered it as 'The Outlandish Knight' but never mind!

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,Eye Lander
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 01:39 PM

Well I haven't read the books, but I certainly enjoyed a wonderful hours television last Sunday and look forward to the next episode.

I am easily pleased.

Jillie

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Brian Peters
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 01:52 PM

"Ah, it was 'Lord Lovel', was it? I remembered it as 'The Outlandish Knight' but never mind!"

When I saw it at the NT, Bill Owen (he of 'Summer Wine') most definitely sang 'Outlandish Knight', ending with the not entirely traditional line: "And she chucked the old sod in the sea!"

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 02:14 PM

Re., my earlier comment; "Well, there's the famous chapter on The Wagon and Horses, which is directly concerned with the singing sessions which were held in that pub."

On the strength of this lot, I've started re-reading LRTCF, which I haven't done for many a long year. Unfortunately, however, while I'd like to amplify what I said about the Wagon and Horses chapter, I'll have to go off memory because I haven't got that far yet.

In any event, FT describes how the singing sessions in the Wagon and Horses had become symbolic of the drift away the old rural folkways which had been the staple fare of village life. IE., she claims that the singing had become dominated by young lads who sang mainly music hall songs, and that the older singers were ignored or at best tolerated out of respect for old age.

Towards the close of the chapter, the dialogue goes something like "What Master Davy, not sung yet? Come on, let's have Your Outlandish Knight." Outside, the women in the cottages near by would say "They'll not be long now. Davy's just finishing his Outlandish Knight".

Apologies if I haven't got that quite right, but as I previously mentioned, it's many a long year since I last read the book. Anyone who wants to check for themselves is welcome to do so, and enjoy a captivating read at the same time.

Incidentally, taking it up once more has reminded me what a beautiful writer Flora Thompson was. And it brought home to me not only how much that first episode travesties rural English society, but the extent to which it also travesties one of the finest accounts of that society in the English language.

Anyone fancy tarring and feathering the production crew?

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 02:17 PM

Sorry, I hadn't seen Brian Peters' comment when I posted my last posting. It was The Outlandish Knight without a shadow of a doubt.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,Terry McDonald
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 02:41 PM

I'm glad it's the Outlandish Knight - I've not read the book for twenty or so years and was prepared to believe I'd made a mistake and replaced one great ballad with another.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 05:28 PM

"and it would be completely out of place in the television production. There is a whole world of difference between the NT productions of Lark Rise and Candleford and that of the BBC version."

Just your opinion - not very adventurous are you! It's amazing what can be done.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's Apprentice
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 06:28 PM

"not very adventurous are you! It's amazing what can be done"

the whole world suprisingly enough, doesn't revolve around what folkies want..and from what I've seen I wouldn't want the music from the NT productions to have anything to do with what's basically a soap-opera (think The Archers)...gawd! Flora must be revolving in her grave at fairly high rate of speed

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 17 Jan 08 - 04:58 AM

Just to correct something I said earlier. The folksongs quoted in the Wagon and Horses chapter include:-

The Barleymow
King Arthur
My Father's a Hedger and Ditcher
I Wish, I Wish
A seven verse fragment of Lord Lovell
A complete version of The Outlandish Knight minus the parrot episode and with "tumbled him into the sea", rather than the Bill Owen's "And she chucked the old sod in the sea". This is sung by Old David, not old Davy. Old Davy was a character in the Ealing comedy film, The Maggie.

Both ballads are sung after the younger singers have decided to "give the old 'uns a turn" and both are used by FT to symbolise the passing of older folkways. I think the reason The Outlandish Knight stuck in my mind, apart from its relative completeness, is that it's the last song sung of the evening. Also, FT's preface to it; "Probably a long chain of grandfathers had sung it; but David was fated to be the last of them. It was out of date, even then, and only tolerated on account of his age."

Sad that such a magnificent ballad should be tolerated purely because of the age of the singer. However, FT was presumably reporting second hand, or maybe quoting songs she'd heard round the village, for I can't imagine she'd have been privy to these singing sessions. Therefore, two thoughts occur to me.

Firstly, she may have preferred to overlook the importance of seniority in village life. In other words, the older singers may have been saved until the last out of respect for the status which would have been attached to old age.

Secondly, I don't know when FT wrote LRTC. However, the first of the trilogy was not published until 1939, and probably written after 1907 - the year when Cecil Sharp first published English Folk-Song Some Conclusions. The point about that is that her comments on the decline of folk song echo some Sharp's comments in EFSSC a little too closely for comfort. I suspect that she may have been relying more on Sharp than on her own memories.

These points for me in no way detract from the book's significance. LRTC is partly fictionalised, but that makes it no less important than the works of Thomas Hardy, which somebody mentioned earlier.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Arnie
Date: 17 Jan 08 - 05:14 AM

So where were the larks? The book mentions that the song of skylarks was ever present over the village, but the BBC sound dept. obviously couldn't find their skylark tapes for this adaptation. Slight thread drift, but has anyone watched Jam & Jerusalem? All the music is performed by Kate Rusby which enticed me to watch the last episode - quite enjoyable.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Fee Lock
Date: 17 Jan 08 - 09:29 AM

Snippety snip from Shimrod:

>Watching 'LRTC' I got this sinking feeling that the old world of rural England is now, more or less, forgotten. I'm sure that someone will remind me that it was nasty, brutal and smelly (I've no doubt that it was!) but there was something rather admirable about it - particularly the labouring folk who worked so hard for pitiful wages and, if we think of them at all now, are dismissed as 'yokels' or 'bumpkins'. Their 'Old World' (by which I mean their inner lives, rather than their material circumstances) has been swept away - much like the once beautiful English countryside has been swept away<

Forgive me ... but no anaesthetic, no dentistry, no antibiotics; no minimum wage, no employee protection, walking to & from work and indeed working in all conditions, doffing one's hat to gentry; washing a family's clothes in the pot by hand & mangle; early & lingering death from pleurisy, TB and childhoods blighted by polio; near-starvation conditions every January; marriage at 14, first child at 15 & giving birth to aunts & uncles at the same time as becoming a grandmother ...

Flora Thompson's books are a brilliant view into a world that has indeed gone, but she makes it absolutely clear that even as late as the 1880s the people she was writing about were little more than serfs.

Fee x

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 17 Jan 08 - 09:46 AM

Thanks Fee, says it all!

Cheers

Les

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Captain Ginger
Date: 17 Jan 08 - 09:53 AM

I have to agree that the BBC adaptation is a chintzy travesty of the original (and where the f*** did the Dawn French character come from?), but it has persuaded me to buy the re-release of the Albion album (now on iTunes).
The Cottesloe production was one of those life-affirming gems of theatre - one of many such done there which featured John Tams and Ashley Hutchings - and I feel hugely privileged to have seen it.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 17 Jan 08 - 10:24 AM

Dear Fee Lock,

I just KNEW that someone would be unable to resist telling me all those things. I hope you feel better for getting all that off your chest! I feel like someone who has been told, "whatever you do, don't press that red button!" ... and I went and pressed it - doh!!

The point that I was trying to make is, just because those old folk had it hard, doesn't mean that we should forget them.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 17 Jan 08 - 10:55 AM

That was my take on what you said Shim. It's just that some of us sometime do get lost in Merry England?

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Brian Peters
Date: 17 Jan 08 - 12:12 PM

>> I think the reason The Outlandish Knight stuck in my mind, apart from its relative completeness, is that it's the last song sung of the evening. Also, FT's preface to it; "Probably a long chain of grandfathers had sung it; but David was fated to be the last of them. It was out of date, even then, and only tolerated on account of his age." <<

I'm sure Fred doesn't need me to point out the The Outlandish Knight has been collected many times since Flora Thompson wrote 'Lark Rise'. If you want a pub example, Hockey Feltwell was still singing it in the Nag's Head, Southery, Norfolk, in 1959 - as demonstrated by the wonderful Veteran release 'Heel & Toe'. He had a version of 'Lamkin', as well.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: RTim
Date: 17 Jan 08 - 01:10 PM

Flora Thompson did not start writing until she was very much older and living in Bournemouth.

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: RTim
Date: 17 Jan 08 - 01:15 PM

My memory may be a little skewed on this one, but anyone interested should look at the following site for loads of info, on FT, etc.

http://www.johnowensmith.co.uk/flora/

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 17 Jan 08 - 01:28 PM

"It's just that some of us sometime do get lost in Merry England?"

The thing is, Les, not only are we not allowed to 'get lost in it' we can't even discuss it any more.

There seem to be 'standard' (PC?) views on everything these days - and woe betide those who stray (or even appear to stray!) from the 'party line'.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 17 Jan 08 - 01:40 PM

I bet you will stray where you want Shim. It can be uncomfortable if you fall in / out with the various tribes.

I remember seeing Woodfiddly, I think they were called, at Sidmouth. I think they did a lot of Playford. They were dressed like something out of a restoration comedy. In a way that was authentic but it didn't suite me and my tribe.

I think song has survived amongst the rural working class whilst dance has survived a bit further up the social tree. And I think that lies at the heart of some of our folk tribalism.

Or maybe not!

Cheers

Les listening to :Paddyrasta

Paddyrasta