Lark Rise to Candleford
Lark Rise to Candleford is a trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels by Flora Thompson (1876 – 1947) about the countryside of north-east Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, England, at the end of the 19th century. The stories were previously published separately as "Lark Rise" in 1939, "Over to Candleford" in 1941 and "Candleford Green" in 1943. They were first published together in 1945. The stories relate to three communities: the hamlet of Juniper Hill (Lark Rise), where Flora grew up; Buckingham (Candleford), one of the nearest towns (which include both Brackley and Bicester) and the nearby village of  Fringford (Candleford Green), where Flora got her first job in the Post Office. Sequel. Thompson wrote a sequel, "Heatherley", set in Grayshott, Hampshire, describing her life working in the Post Office at the turn of the century, but the period lacked the changing social significance described in her earlier works and she did not seek to have it published. It appeared posthumously in 1979. Plays. The television scriptwriter and playwright Keith Dewhurst adapted Thompson's trilogy into two plays, "Lark Rise" and "Candleford", which were performed at the National Theatre in 1978–9. Dewhurst's concept was to reflect the familiarity , one for another, of the village inhabitants by staging the plays as a promenade, with the theatre seats removed and the actors, musicians and audience intermingling. The books describe village life through the seasons of the year, but for the plays Dewhurst selected just two days: the first day of harvest for "Lark Rise" and the first hunt meet of the new year, a winter's day in January, for "Candleford". He drew on Thompson's own introductions to set the scene and her reflections on the fates of her characters from a future perspective – a future in which many  of the boys just depicted had died in war – as a coda. In Dewhurst's words, his audience was to recognise the “common humanity” linking the nineteenth-century villagers and the contemporary audience. The joint directors for the two productions were Bill Bryden and Sebastian Graham-Jones. Flora Thompson (“Laura” in the plays) was played by Valerie Whittington. The musical directors, John Tams and Ashley Hutchings, made use of traditional songs as the basis for the score, performed by the Albion Band. A cast recording was released in 1980 and reissued in 2006. “It is a most extraordinary event...It  will send most spectators out wiser and happier human beings...one of those rare theatrical occasions with a genuine healing quality”, wrote theatre critic Michael Billington of "The Guardian". In the 1978 Olivier Awards "Lark Rise" was nominated for "Best Play" and "Best Director". In October 2005 the plays were revived by the Shapeshifter company at the Finborough Theatre in London, directed by Mike Bartlett and John Terry. Television. A BBC adaptation, starring Julia Sawalha, Olivia Hallinan, Brendan Coyle and Dawn French, ran on BBC One from 13 January 2008 to 13 February 2011. The series was adapted by Bill  Gallagher and directed by Charles Palmer.