Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 04:44 PM

Did I see a plane going over in part 2?

Brian Glover sang in the National Production - any offers of which song?

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 02:50 AM

When Lark Rise was on at the National (must have been 1984) I remember John Tams turning up at our little studio one morning to edit the tapes. As we had just opened, I had no idea how to edit the tape and Phil (my partner in the venture) who knew about stuff like that, drove down from Castleford to serve our first customer.

Anyway Phil is busy there with the new Revox, splicing block and razor blade (how quaint was technology in those far off days!) and Martin Carthy's voice issues out of the speakers......

Bloody hell! says Phil,...... its Walter Gabriel!

That's one customer we didn't see again.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Anne Lister
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 03:31 AM

I couldn't recall Brian Glover being in the NT productions so I've just consulted my programme ... he's not in the cast list for either Lark Rise or Candleford, but he is in the central cast photo. With no role mentioned. So no, I have no idea what he sang! Can you remind me what part he played?

The date for the joint production, btw, was around 1979. Lark Rise had been on earlier.

Anne

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 04:36 AM

"Its "sin" in my mind is to perpetuate the rural idyll myth -"

Right! Case closed, then! One more thing that you don't have to think about.

On, off; left, right; black, white - and bugger the shades of grey in between!

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: mattkeen
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 04:58 AM

Not case closed at all - just not the front I choose to fight on. There are many other places where myths around the rural tradition, folk music (many of those perpetuated by those who say they love it)can be fought with half a chance of making some progress.


THE biggest gain in my mind is the establishment of the degree at Newcastle


Quaker Grey is my colour actually -

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Marilyn
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 08:41 AM

"The Mole Catcher's Apprentice: Flora Thompson's original book is my favourite book of all time"
It's on my top five list too and is the only book I have ever kept in my bedside drawer for 30 something years just in case I can't sleep and want to dip into it at three in the morning! I've actually lost count of how many times I've read it.

WLD: "Anyway Phil is busy there with the new Revox, splicing block and razor blade (how quaint was technology in those far off days!)"
You mean they don't do it like that now? *g*

Just to add my fourpennorth: I really love the book(s) and am sad that people who have never read Lark Rise to Candleford will think that the TV adaptation is a true interpretation. For myself, I'm watching the series but as something new in its own right and trying hard not to pick it to pieces too much (difficult - particularly with the Dawn French character which is so wrong but... there you go).
It's pleasant watching but doesn't grab me the way the book does.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 10:09 PM

Maybe they'll give us something a bit harder edged next, such as Trumpton to Camberwick Green...

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Rapunzel
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 08:19 AM

Did anyone else marvel at the amazing melodeon on last night's episode - for the first solo piece it sounded just like an english concertina and then when he accompanied the singing it had the remarkable tone of a harmonium!

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 08:27 AM

Yes, what an extraordinarily versatile instrument (or could it have been a Streb?)

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 09:02 AM

I said to my wife last night (and I know nothing about squeeze boxes- or anything else for that matter) I bet tomorrow, someone on the Mudcat will complain he was miming to the wrong instrument!

RtS

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: stevep
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 10:25 AM

What puzzles me is that in the first episode, it was established that Candleford is eight miles from Lark Rise. So how come the penniless Dawn French keeps turning up at the post office? Does she walk (which would take her all day), or hitch a ride on a horse and cart?

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 10:52 AM

She walks, Steve, and it only takes a couple of hours.
My grandmother used to walk from her village to the nearest city once a week, to visit my Dad who was studying there and take provisions to him so he wouldn't have to spend money (they were dirt poor). It's a distance of some 15 miles.

And she'd walk home that same evening.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's Apprentice
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 11:06 AM

"I said to my wife last night (and I know nothing about squeeze boxes- or anything else for that matter) I bet tomorrow, someone on the Mudcat will complain he was miming to the wrong instrument!"

Well you know the old saying about if there's nothing to complain about you invent something......?

Charlotte

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Newport Boy
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 11:40 AM

There are plenty of accounts of substantial walks before the days of motor transport. I re-discovered recently one reference to Francis Kilvert, curate at Clyro (near Hay-on-Wye).

the walk over Newchurch Hill from Clyro to the valley of the Arrow was one of his favourites.

Kilvert discovered the lane past Veaullt Farm when he set out on a fine February day in 1870 to walk over the hills to Colva. He called at the cottage at Green Lane and went on with the son of the family, Price Price, 'a sturdy boy, with a round rosy good-humoured face and big black eyes' who had promised to show him the way. They walked over the hill to the Fuallt, failed to cross the swollen River Arrow by the bridge and had to go upstream across the Glasnant, then over 'the Reallt' (Yr Allt), along the road to the Wern and Pentwyn and by the field path to Colva church. At Colva he tried the echo in the churchyard and called at the Sun Inn in Colva. The parish clerk kept the inn, and Kilvert wanted to ask him for the words of some folk songs and traditional hymns.

I'd not noticed that last sentence before - I must try and track down any results.

The walk as described is about 10 hilly miles each way, and time would have been spent at the cottage, the farm, the church and the pub.

Phil

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 05:56 PM

Can I say that if Caroline was walking 16 miles a day she'd be a wee bit thinner maybe? I'm doing about 5 most days and it's working a treat...

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's Apprentice
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 06:23 PM

"she'd be a wee bit thinner maybe?"

another knock a Dawn French mayhap....all of which has absolutely nothing to do with this series.

Charlotte

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 29 Jan 08 - 09:19 AM

My only problem with Dawn French is her long standing ubiquitousness in the light of her woeful lack of any obvious talent; otherwise, or rather weightwise, she is a positive icon of natural female beauty, albeit an exception to a rather insiduous rule.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 29 Jan 08 - 04:57 PM

But there was a nice folk club atmosphere at the end!

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's Apprentice
Date: 29 Jan 08 - 05:21 PM

I'm wondering what contemporary folk clubs have to do with any of this
and it sure as heck isn't The Cottesloe Theatre.
then again I'm not obsessed by folk music, love it, but not obsessed by it

Charlotte

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Cuddles
Date: 29 Jan 08 - 06:08 PM

>"My only problem with Dawn French is her long standing ubiquitousness in the light of her woeful lack of any obvious talent;"


That's an unpleasant thing to say, and it is merely *your* opinion, which is not shared by thousands of others.

Dawn French is, in case you haven't noticed, one of our best loved comediennes. She's a witty and intelligent lady who can laugh at herself too. She's very beautiful inside and out and to be honest, I'd say that she has more talent in her little finger than many people in here who do nowt but moan about others, be they musicians or actors.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Cuddles
Date: 29 Jan 08 - 06:23 PM

"Can I say that if Caroline was walking 16 miles a day she'd be a wee bit thinner maybe? I'm doing about 5 most days and it's working a treat..."

Well bully for you!

Perhaps Caroline walked 16 miles a day then drank pints and pints to try and forget the cruel comments that some people, thinking themselves to be highly superior to her, may have enjoyed making about her body.

This may go completely over your head, but it's not what you look like on the outside, but *who* you are on the inside that matters.

"Yes, what an extraordinarily versatile instrument"

There really is no answer to that is there? ;-)

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Jan 08 - 08:04 PM

I don't think it's Dawn's bulk that puts off those people who don't like her. It's the constant in-your-face jollity. Which is no doubt what the people casting and directing insist on. I imagine she probably gets a bit fed up of it sometimes.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Captain Ginger
Date: 30 Jan 08 - 02:38 AM

...that and the fact that her acting range runs from A to, er, A again. She's essentially an Eighties stand-up who has been given rather a lot of indulgence and some good-ish scripts.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's Apprentice
Date: 30 Jan 08 - 11:25 AM

Caroline Arless is a rather minor character in the book...the role, like that of Arwen in Lord of the Rings, was beefed up to benefit the star in the role. Personally I've gone back to the book in a big way and I'm listening to original soundtrack music to the National Theatre production.

Charlotte (somewhere between Lark Rise and Candleford)

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,Mr Fox (at work)
Date: 30 Jan 08 - 11:48 AM

They seem to be trying to turn Ms French's character into a sort of early 20th century Pa Larkin as played by David 'cheeky chappie' Jason. In short, a grotesque caricature of the character as written by the original author in a terrible, saccarine version of rural life.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,Edthefolkie
Date: 30 Jan 08 - 12:05 PM

Can anyone remember where the Great War memorial brass is with E. Timms at the bottom? Think it's Fringford but may be Cottisford.

(Certainly not Juniper Hill - poor little "Lark Rise" hasn't even got a church, just a phone box at the end of the road - still as isolated as in Flora T's time)

I've meant to make a pilgrimage in August when I'm in Oxfordshire for years but somehow other things always get in the way (like the bar at Cropredy!).

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's Apprentice
Date: 30 Jan 08 - 12:59 PM

"Can anyone remember where the Great War memorial brass is with E. Timms at the bottom? Think it's Fringford but may be Cottisford."

It's in Cottisford Church, Ed :-)


Cottisford Church

Charlotte (still on that road)

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's Apprentice
Date: 30 Jan 08 - 01:06 PM

right at the top of the page is a photograph of the Memorial Plaque with E Timms at the very bottom

The Memorial Plaque

Charlotte (at the church)

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Cuddles
Date: 31 Jan 08 - 06:13 AM

If anyone who may be reading this thread who hasn't yet got the CD, then you can read all about it below. As someone who has got it, I can thoroughly recommend it.

Lark Rise To Candleford CD

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Andy Jackson
Date: 31 Jan 08 - 06:50 AM

Have you all settled down now? Here's my two penn'orth.
Lovelt escapism Sunday night telly, and what's wrong with that? It's not onthe History channel and never stands up to be an accurate reflection of life as it was. I have the advantage of never having read the book, so I am thouroughly enjoying it. I also enjoyed the Albion Band treatment years ago, (it might have been at the crucible in Reading or similar). After the first prog I was straight on line and bought the CD. Oh what joy - what memories. But a DIFFERENT event to the TV programme. Note "different", not better nor worse. I will now buy the book and not look at it until the TV show has run its course.
As for the comments against Dawn French, well this is Mudcat after all and some love a moan about nothing.

And Re:
"...I'm not obsessed by folk music, love it, but not obsessed by it"
I am a bit obsessed by it but not the rest of the world feels like us. I spent all my life in Telly and sometimes I even had to add Country and Western as background music ( eugh ) but right for the programme at the time so there we go.
Can you immagine the outcry if the whole programme had Albion Band in the background. Just stick the cd on in the background next time you are watching and you will see what I mean.

Cheers, happy viewing,

Andy

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Jan 08 - 02:42 PM

Are we all assuming that what the Albion Band did with Larkrise was good? Hmm; have to think about that one.
I agree with Andy - by no means perfect, but a pleasant enough way to spend an hour on Sundays.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's Apprentice
Date: 31 Jan 08 - 03:23 PM

"Are we all assuming that what the Albion Band did with Larkrise was good"

It was and still is...more music, that which didn't make it on the original recording, coming soon, courtesy of Ashley H and The Lark Rise Band.

Charlotte (All of a Row)

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 31 Jan 08 - 05:03 PM

Aye. It were thirty year ago, when I faced that old bull at Fishponds. It were the year my brother, James, married that Candleford woman. By hem, but she were near! She were that near she 'udn't give away enough to make a pair of leggings for a skylark.

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Compton
Date: 01 Feb 08 - 12:27 PM

I totally agree that LRTC is a pleasant watch on a Sunday night. I just hope that one day some TV company will produce Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thomson...from the beginning!!

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's Apprentice
Date: 01 Feb 08 - 12:32 PM

"some TV company will produce Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thomson...from the beginning!! "

with a soundtrack by....oh never mind.. ;-)

Charlotte (off in her pony and cart, whistling The Lad I Left Behind Me)

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Compton
Date: 07 Feb 08 - 09:54 AM

No, Mole catcher's apprentice...I counldn't care less about Mr. Hutchings soundtrack...it;s just that I have this book...which is a jolly ggod read...amd I amk sure that "The Early Years"..would make good TV...or would it have to be on Ceebeebies?

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's Apprentice
Date: 07 Feb 08 - 03:11 PM

Oh indeed it is a VERY good read, my copy is actually a few years older than I am, and I would welcome a production of Lark Rise to Candleford from the beginning, you, of course missed my point..but such is life.

Charlotte (Dare to be a Daniel)

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: Andy Jackson
Date: 10 Feb 08 - 04:11 PM

Well are you happy now? No Dawn French tonight.

;)

Andy

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's Apprentice
Date: 10 Feb 08 - 04:26 PM

that'll make the usual suspects happy *LOL*

Charlotte (makes no difference)

Subject: RE: Lark Rise to Candleford -BBC serial
From: irishenglish
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 02:17 PM

I'd like to see someone cut and paste this!