Archive for December, 2007
Episode one
When a new baby arrives in the Timmins family, Laura, the eldest, is forced to leave the family home and embark on a new life. Having spent her early years in the small hamlet of Lark Rise, in late 19th Century Oxfordshire, Laura finds herself working in the Post Office, the hub of the [...]
Victoria Hamilton plays Ruby Pratt and Matilda Ziegler plays Pearl Pratt
The Pratt sisters run the women’s clothing store in Candleford. Neither is married and they spend most of their time running a critical eye over other people’s affairs. Pearl is the elder sister and takes the lead in ensuring that the highest standards are maintained in their shop and in the town as a [...]
Other characters
Candleford: Zillah Zillah is Dorcas’s servant. Zillah has known Dorcas since she was a child, and worked for her father, and her grandfather before her. Nobody could love Dorcas more than Zillah, and she also considers Matthew and Thomas as part of the family, not that this stops her grumbling about all three of them [...]
John Dagleish plays Alf Arless
Alf is Caroline Arless’s eldest son. He left school early to help provide for the family. Unlike his mother he is extremely honest and hard working. He is only a boy himself but is responsible for earning the majority of the family’s money by working in the fields. It pains him to see his mother [...]
Dawn French plays Caroline Arless
Caroline is one of the Timmins’ neighbours. She is married to Walter who is away at sea. They have four children, and another on the way. Caroline is easily the biggest and most controversial character in Lark Rise. Her husband, Walter, has gone away to sea, leaving her to care for her ever-growing brood. But [...]
Claudie Blakley plays Emma Timmins and Brendan Coyle plays Robert Timmins
Robert is Laura’s father and a stonemason by trade. He is married to Emma. They live with their family in the End House on the edge of Lark Rise. Robert grew up in Oxford where his parents kept an inn. But Robert chose to be apprenticed to a stonemason. He arrived in Lark Rise with [...]
Ben Miles plays Sir Timothy Midwinter
Sir Timothy is the squire, the principal landowner in the area and justice of the peace. Sir Timothy and Dorcas were childhood friends and have remained close ever since. He is well loved by all who encounter him because, although firm, he is fair in his dealings with his tenants, and those brought before him [...]
Julia Sawalha plays Dorcas Lane
Dorcas runs Candleford’s Post Office and owns the town’s forge. Her father was a journeyman, the son of a master-smith. His travels came to an end when he stopped off to work at the Candleford forge and met the blacksmith’s daughter. He settled down, married and Dorcas Lane was born soon afterwards. While Dorcas was [...]
Olivia Hallinan plays Laura Timmins
Laura works for Dorcas Lane at the Post Office in Candleford. She is 16 years old, the eldest child of Robert and Emma Timmins and has four siblings: Edmund, Ethel, Frank and baby Annie. Laura is her father’s favourite and has inherited his yearning to learn more, see more, his impulsiveness and his outspokenness. “Laura [...]
Writer and Executive Producer Bill Gallagher, writes…
“In her wonderful evocation of Victorian life, Flora Thompson writes that the people she grew up with “had never lost the secret of being happy on little”. In our age of frenetic appetite, that seemed to me to be something worth dramatising. “What struck me first about the books was how they are teeming with [...]