James Dowland is confined to his hospital bed when his son, Sidney, arrives in Candleford, as BBC One’s adaptation of Flora Thompson’s childhood memoirs concludes.

Dorcas welcomes the child into the Post Office, encouraging Laura and Ruby to do everything they can to make him feel at home there. As Sidney is introduced to the colourful characters of Candleford and the charming folk in Lark Rise, he becomes quite an object of local fascination. When James is at last released from hospital, however, he clashes with Dorcas over what’s in the best interests of the son he never knew he had.

Elsewhere, as the wedding of Thomas Brown and Miss Ellison fast approaches, anticipation and excitement grows among the people of Lark Rise and Candleford. Thomas is thrown into a torrent of uncertainty and anxiety by a few words from the common book of prayer, and Miss Ellison develops a strange disease of the skin which could be the result of her own anxieties. Will the betrothed couple ever make it down the aisle?

Jason Merrells plays James Dowland, Julia Sawalha plays Dorcas Lane, Olivia Hallinan plays Laura, Victoria Hamilton plays Ruby Pratt, Mark Heap plays Thomas Brown and Sandy McDade plays Miss Ellison.

The inhabitants of Lark Rise and
Candleford go carol singing

Lark Rise To Candleford returns for a second series with a feature-length Christmas special, followed by 11 new episodes of this popular and heart-warming adaptation of Flora Thomson’s charming memoir of her Oxfordshire childhood.

Julia Sawalha, Olivia Hallinan, Dawn French, Brendan Coyle and Mark Heap return to delight and entertain in a wonderfully captivating seasonal tale that unites the past and the present.

There’s also an extra festive treat for viewers in the form of guest star Sheridan Smith (Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps, Love Soup and Jonathan Creek – The Grinning Man) in the role of Cinderella Doe.

When Dorcas and Emma each want to give Laura the same gift for Christmas, an old family wound is opened up and Laura finds herself torn between two mothers.

As the inhabitants of Lark Rise and Candleford prepare for the festivities, loyalties are tested and, amid the gift-giving and carol singing, tensions are building.

However, the arrival of a ragged, bare-footed young woman, who goes by the name of Cinderella Doe, introduces a note of Christmas mystery.

With its usual mix of charm, warmth, comedy and pathos, Lark Rise To Candleford kicks off its new season with a story rich in history.

Laura Timmins is played by Olivia Hallinan, Dorcas Lane by Julia Sawalha, Caroline Arless by Dawn French, Emma Timmins by Claudie Blakley, Robert Timmins by Brendan Coyle, Alf Arless by John Dagleish, Thomas Brown by Mark Heap, Queenie Turrill by Linda Bassett, Twister Turrill by Karl Johnson, Ruby Pratt by Victoria Hamilton, Pearl Pratt by Matilda Ziegler, Miss Ellison by Sandy McDade and Walter Arless by Robert Pugh.

Lark Rise To Candleford is also being simulcast on the BBC HD channel – the BBC’s High Definition channel available through Freesat, Sky and Virgin Media. With up to five times more detail than standard definition television, HD gives you exceptionally vivid colours and crisp pictures to make Lark Rise To Candleford a truly cinematic TV experience.

Lark Rise To Candleford returns to BBC One in January 2009, a perfect Sunday night winter warmer which regularly attracted average viewing figures of 6.7 million in its first series.

The new series of 12 episodes, which includes a Christmas special, promises more feel good drama in Bill Gallagher‘s adaption of Flora Thompson‘s charming memoir of her Oxfordshire childhood.

Set in the small hamlet of Lark Rise and the wealthier neighbouring market town, Candleford, at the end of the 19th century, the series chronicles the daily lives of farm workers, craftsmen and gentry, observing characters in loving, boisterous and competing communities of families, rivals, friends and neighbours.

The Sunday evening drama sees the welcome return of favourite characters including Julia Sawalha as Dorcas Lane, who owns and runs the Post Office: Olivia Hallinan as Laura Timmins her assistant, who was taken under Dorcas’s wing in the first series; Brendan Coyle, is Robert, Laura’s opinionated father; Claudie Blakley is Laura’s mother Emma; Mark Heap is Thomas Brown, the Head Postman and devout Christian; Victoria Hamilton is Ruby Pratt and Matilda Ziegler her sister Pearl Pratt, who run the fashionable clothes store in Candleford.

At the end of the first series Zillah (Liz Smith) sadly passed away leaving an emotional hole at the heart of the Post Office.

Meanwhile Sir Timothy (Ben Miles) and Lady Adelaide (Olivia Grant) left Candleford to start a new life in London.

Loves young dream turned sour for Laura (Olivia Hallinan) and Philip (Oliver Jackson Cohen) after his actions caused her father, Robert Timmins (Brendan Coyle), to be sacked from his job.

On a happier note, everyone was delighted to discover that Dorcas would be staying at the Post Office when it transpired that Thomas never posted the deeds to the Post Office.

Joining the cast for the second series of Lark Rise To Candleford are Jason Merrells (Cutting It, Waterloo Road) who plays the charming new hotelier, James Dowland, who arrives in town and ruffles a few feathers, and Ruby Bentall (Oliver Twist, New Tricks) as Minnie, a new addition to the Post Office in Candleford, she plays Dorcas’s rather incompetent maid.

Executive Producer and writer, Bill Gallagher, says: “With so many stories in Flora Thompson’s three books, we are able to constantly bring new and wonderful characters and situations to life.

“These new characters add a new dynamic to the cast and will, no doubt, make their mark on the residents of Lark Rise and Candleford.”

The second series is commissioned by Jane Tranter, Controller of BBC Fiction, and was filmed in and around the West Country throughout the summer 2008.

The series Executive Producer is Susan Hogg and Producer is Annie Tricklebank.

Lark Rise To Candleford is also being simulcast on the BBC HD channel – the BBC’s High Definition channel available through Freesat, Sky and Virgin Media. With up to five times more detail than standard definition television, HD gives you exceptionally vivid colours and crisp pictures to make Lark Rise To Candleford a truly cinematic TV experience.

“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 wonderful characters and anecdotes. I knew immediately that this was crying out not to be the familiar four-part dramatisation of a classic novel, but to be a distinctive Sunday night long-running drama series. There’s just so much going on in the three books that episode stories come tumbling off the pages thick and fast.

“What also struck me as uniquely appealing was that this was not a depiction of one community, but two. And how different they are! Whilst Lark Rise is gently holding onto the past, Candleford is busily bustling into the future.

“From this difference comes the conflict that is a never-ending source of dramatic stories, comic incident and torn relationships. Caught between these two worlds is Laura (Olivia Hallinan), a 16-year-old hamlet girl who goes to work in the Candleford Post Office when the arrival of another mouth to feed in her family means that she, the oldest, must leave.

“Lark Rise is poverty-stricken, life-loving and proud of its rural identity. Life here is spontaneous – they’re always ready to have a knees-up and “a bit of a tune” – and they are earthy.

“People make their meagre living off the land. Sometimes hunger bites. Sometimes a bit of poaching is called for. But the books remind us of other lost arts … like Spadgering, the catching of sparrows in nets for roasting, or the making of delicious puddings.

“Candleford, on the other hand, is impatiently improving itself. Commerce is burgeoning. Status and appearances matter. The windows of the local stores are packed with silk dresses and fine, hand-made shoes. The pursuit of modernity is nowhere more evident than in the Post Office, in an age of rapidly growing communications.

“The contrast between these two places can be amusing, touching or often absurd … but the pace of change can throw up cutting human dilemmas, like the first showdown in the series when the two communities fall out over the cost of a telegram.

“This kind of thing matters when news of a long-lost brother’s serious illness gets lost amongst Post Office regulations. Tensions spill over into open hostility, and Laura – newly arrived in Candleford – finds herself caught in the crossfire.

“Having found the form for the series, my main problem was how to people it. The difficulty was what and who to leave out! Lark Rise To Candleford is bursting with great characters.

“Laura herself is a delightful combination of simple country girl, feisty, intelligent and courageous, but – most endearingly – she’s insightful in ways that separate her. She loves the world she comes from, but she is outgrowing it fast as she makes her way into adulthood. And her parents know this … that, as much as the pressing hardship they live under, is why they sent her out into the world.

“Laura’s parents, Emma and Robert (Claudie Blakley and Brendan Coyle) are proud and generous people … sometimes too proud, and sometimes too generous. Robert’s idea of “the fellowship of man” leads him to bring tramps he finds in a ditch into his home.

“Caroline Arless (Dawn French) is larger than life in every way – she loves to throw up her skirts and dance, she spends every penny she has on “feathering the foam” … and some pennies she doesn’t have, too. Her zest for life is winning and often funny, but debtors’ prison is waiting for those who can’t keep up.

“Queenie and Twister (Linda Bassett and Karl Johnson) keep the hamlet in touch with a still-older way of life, one of bee-keeping, mead-making and eggling. It is a life informed by superstition, but also with hard-won understanding of the canny ways of survival.

“Candleford’s taste for the finer life gives its inhabitants an attitude. Zillah (Liz Smith), the Post Office’s crabby, gossipy old maid, warns Laura: “You’re in Candleford now, girl. This is not a farm yard!”

“Thomas (Mark Heap) the pious postman, demands of her: “Are you a Christian?” And the aloof and pretentious Pratt sisters (Matilda Zieger and Victoria Hamilton) proprietors of The Stores, look down their noses and caution the little country girl: “Be sure and don’t touch anything in our shop.”

“And then there is Dorcas Lane (Julia Sawalha) the Post Mistress, a woman ahead of her time, at the hub of the community, with a wry and provocative sense of humour. With a taste for idiosyncratic luxuries – warm rain water baths, buttermilk face-wash – Dorcas is over-fond of meddling in her neighbours’ affairs. Her own life – her own love life – is not as simple as it first appears.

“The Post Office itself is an important character in the make-up of the show: full of life, reaching out into the wider world, and bringing to it the foibles and frailties of the locals, not just of the town but of the surrounding countryside.

“As a writer, that journey from script to screen can be fraught with disappointments, compromises and frustrations … and, of course, a fair share of surprises and delights. We have a cast to die for, great performances in abundance, but one of the greatest boons came from the toughest challenge.

“Having written the two communities we then had to find them. Not easy, given the demands of a long-running series and its heavy schedule. Two pieces of brilliance gave us the answer.

“The first came from Nicolas Brown, director of BBC Drama Production. He simply said: “Why don’t we build them?” The second came with designer Malcolm Thornton (Our Mutual Friend). From a few farm buildings, Malcolm has created the most extraordinary world. Two worlds!

“Everyone who walks onto those sets is taken aback, not just by the authenticity and the loving detail, but the beauty of it. In the detail, in that beauty is the evocation of what Flora Thompson gave us in her love letter to a vanished corner of rural England.”