Lark Rise to Candleford review – A tender and evocative tribute to rural life in transition | stage

FLaura Thompson’s autobiographical novels, about her upbringing in rural Oxfordshire in the late 19th century, have been adapted for the stage before, in a 1978 outing production at the National Theatre. They are now best known for the BBC series in which Laura – note the rhyming name – guides us through the quaint workings of village folk, as sleepy rural businesses face an industrial and urban future.

In Hammerpuzzle Theater Company’s new adaptation, the focus is largely on Laura’s own story. We follow her journey from her childhood, when her future was limited, and she was not encouraged to read. Jessica Temple’s Laura is a delicate mixture of game, sensitive, intelligent and unworldly. Alongside her, director Bryn Holding deftly assembles his ensemble of five actors and musicians into entire communities, whether it’s fellow schoolchildren playfully reciting a backwards alphabet, or bar patrons performing a drinking song you’ll be desperate to join in with.

They are also her family, bumping into the carriage that transports Laura from her humble hamlet to the similar vortex of Candleford. Christopher Glover moves seamlessly from forbidding father to understanding uncle; Whether it is his brother Edmund, whom he left behind at Lark Rise, or an Irish worker hoping for news from home at the post office, Alex Wilson feels great sympathy. Here – in Anna Kelsey’s chic ensemble – Laura gets a job, under the active eye of Dorcas Lane (a brash Rosalind Ford).

Tamsin Kennard’s script touches on feminism – Laura and Dorcas are “strange” women, like George Gissing’s spinsters – and politics (Laura’s father is clearly a liberal who hates restrictions) without really embracing them. “All times are times of transition,” we are told, but the narrative structure—which takes an unexpected turn in the second half—never allows us to fully see what we are moving toward. The truly poignant encounters (journalist Zari Shulapurkar is an odd delight) lead only to pontificating about not being able to have it all.

However, that is the past, and the company will be more than happy to spend time on it. Between Thompson’s writing—we hear the rain “rushing like lead bullets in leaden water”—and the theatrical surroundings, this evocative production is an affectionate tribute to a people worth remembering, in the memoirist’s words.