‘Fresh, real & modern!'

Joanna Scanlan and Bradley Walsh on bringing the fun-loving Larkin family back to our screens…

- IAN MACEWAN

THE LARKINS

NEW SUNDAY / ITV / 8PM / EP 1 of 6 / COMEDY DRAMA

Thirty years ago, The Darling Buds of May, the comedy-drama set in 1950s rural Kent and starring Sir David Jason and Pam Ferris, became a massive hit, making a young Catherine Zeta-Jones a household name in the process.

Now the HE Bates novels on which the series was based have been reimagined for a new generation in ITV’s The Larkins.

Joanna Scanlan and Bradley Walsh lead a star-spangled cast as working-class couple Ma and Pop Larkin, who live an idyllic life on their Kentish farm with their six children – including the beautiful Mariette (Sabrina Bartlett), who catches the eye of visiting accountant Charley (Tok Stephen).

TV Times caught up with Joanna, 59, and Bradley, 61, during a break in filming in the beautiful English countryside to find out more...

Were you familiar with HE Bates’ books and the 1990s TV series?

JOANNA When I was 14, I was ill and had to stay in bed for two weeks, and my mum gave me books to read. I fell in love with the characters and what they stood for. There’s PH something that’s so warm and embracing that I loved even then.

BRADLEY I’ve never read a book! Seriously, though, I’d never watched the TV adaptation of The Darling Buds of May, and I never read the books, so I came to this quite blind!

What’s special about the new adaptation?