Based on the book by Flora Thompson, adapted by Tamsin Kennard, this is the story of Laura and her journey from childhood in the hamlet of Lark Rise to the world around, at the end of the 19th Century.

It started with a beautifully harmonised a capella song from the cast of six, and music was provided throughout the play by the cast on violins, cello, guitar and piano.

Laura and her brother Edmund (Alex Wilson – excellent facial expressions) were very close as children. Laura was learning to read, which developed into a lifetime attachment to books, frowned on by her mother (Rosalind Steele) who was strict with the two. With their father they spend the summer in the town of Candleford – with its railway station, lampposts and people – where they have relatives. Laura is offered the possibility of a job in the Post Office, run by Dorcas Lane and after the interval Laura moves to Candleford to take that job, tentatively at first but growing in confidence.

As Laura, Jessica Temple has to cover the whole of her life, from childhood through to adult maturity as she emerges from the small happy community of Lark Rise into the bigger world where not everything goes as she would like. This is a strong and moving performance.

The second half starts in the Post Office where postmistress Dorcas (Rosalind Ford) who describes herself as ‘odd’ and is also a blacksmith gives an impressively overpowering performance. We also see a number of Candleford citizens and others, played by the rest of the cast as splendidly over-the-top characters.

Christopher Glover gets just the right tone for Laura’s stern father and her friendly uncle at Candleford. Zrey Sholapurkar showed his versatility as a naughty schoolboy and a Brummie journalist.

Directed by Bryn Holding, this is a well-acted, fast moving production. There are so many threads to the story and the action is often hectic but never tedious.

Lark Rise to Candleford is a co-production with Theatre by the Lake in association with Hammerpuzzle Theatre Company. It will be playing at Theatre by the Lake from 26th March to 18th April.

PAUL SHAVE

A tender story of a bygone age

Flora Thompson’s Lark Rise to Candleford beautifully adapted by Tamsin Kennard is set in the idyllic Oxfordshire county in the early 1900s. Anna Kelsey’s impressive design conjures up this rural existence with crafted period costumes and an imaginatively created set.

Bryn Holding’s adept direction perfectly evokes this gentle story filled with long lost memories told through the eyes of Laura, a joyous performance by Jessica Temple, and her dearest brother Edmond (Alex Wilson). Their childhood is filled with adventures but despite being discouraged by her parents, the feisty Laura teaches herself to read and so her future has new hope and she longs to visit the nearby town of Candleford.

Their formative years soon pass, including a hilarious school scene were the children recite the alphabet backwards under the firm tutorship of the teacher.

The highly talented six actor/musicians bring the country atmosphere to vibrant life with a capella harmonies, rousing ballads in the local pub’s tap room and folk songs all sung with gusto in the trademark style of the Watermill theatre.

Christopher Glover plays Laura’s strict father and doubles up as her more sympathetic uncle. Rosalind Steele is splendid as her mother worried about what the future will bring for Laura and would prefer if she could settle down with a good husband. She also skilfully plays an affluent lady who spurns the working class.

Eventually the family visits Candleford for the summer and Laura meets the postmistress, Dorcas Lane, an outstanding performance from Rosalind Ford whose energy and characterisation are breath-taking. Laura is taken on as an assistant postmistress and revels in her newfound freedom and determined to learn as much as possible even delivering the post. As her confidence grows, she meets a young man Godfrey Parish (Zrey Sholapurkar) and a tentative relationship develops as they go cycling together.

The post office counters are inventively moved creating a lovely piece of theatrical business.

This production in association with Hammerpuzzle Theatre Company and Keswick’s Theatre by the Lake (March 26 to April 18) has very high production standards and this captivating tender-hearted story of a bygone age is a sheer delight.

ROBIN STRAPP

Tender, evocative tribute to rural lives in transition

★★★★
Flora Thompson’s autobiographical novels, about growing up in the late 19th-century Oxfordshire countryside, have been adapted for stage before, in a 1978 promenade production at the National Theatre. They’re now better known for the BBC series where Laura – note the rhyming name – guided us through the quaint doings of village folk, as quiet rural routines encountered an industrial, urban future.

In Hammerpuzzle theatre company’s new adaptation, Laura’s own story is very much the focus. We follow her journey from a childhood in which her future is limited, and her reading actively discouraged. Jessica Temple’s Laura is a tender mix of game and sensitive, clever and unworldly. Alongside her, director Bryn Holding deftly musters his five-strong ensemble of actor-musicians into entire communities, be it fellow schoolchildren comically reciting a backwards alphabet, or pubgoers performing a drinking song you’ll be desperate to join.

They’re also her family, bumping along on the cart that transports Laura from her humble hamlet to Candleford’s comparable whirl. Christopher Glover segues seamlessly from forbidding father to understanding uncle; Alex Wilson is searingly empathetic whether as brother Edmund, left behind in Lark Rise, or an Irish labourer hoping for news from home at the Post Office. It’s here – in Anna Kelsey’s immaculately dressed set – that Laura lands a job, under the energetic eye of Dorcas Lane (a bustling Rosalind Ford).

Tamsin Kennard’s script touches on feminism – Laura and Dorcas are “odd” women, like George Gissing’s spinsters – and politics (Laura’s father is apparently a liberal who abjures enclosures) without ever really embracing them. “All times are times of transition,” we’re told, but the narrative structure – which takes an unexpected turn in the second half – never lets us see quite what we’re moving towards. Genuinely touching encounters (Zrey Sholapurkar’s journalist is an awkward delight) lead only to homilies about not being able to have everything.

And yet this is a past, and a company, you’ll be more than happy spending time in. Between Thompson’s writing – we hear the rain “plash like leaden bullets into the leaden water” – and the theatre’s period surroundings, this evocative production is an affectionate tribute to a people who do, in the memoirist’s words, deserve to be remembered.

EMMA JOHN