The Darling Buds of May

 

Review by Paul Towers, 1/7/24

The Darling Buds of May by HE Bates

Directed by Mary Jones

Produced by Leicester Drama Society

At The Little Theatre until Saturday 6^th July 2024

When I first left school I worked on a farm in Kent as a labourer. As I lived on-site in a caravan there was very little to occupy me in the evening. However one of my pleasures was to immerse myself in H E Bates’ bucolic stories of Kentish farm life. While my day-to-day struggles against the weather were nothing like the eternal summer of the Lakins, the stories did resonate with me.

The Darling Buds of May (the title taken from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18) was written in 1958 after author HE Bates saw a large family emerging from an ice cream shop while on holiday. Their rumbustious joy in each others company inspired him to create the Larkin family. Ma, Pop and their six children live in an idyllic rural world that most of us could only dream of.

Darling Buds tells the story of how the family inveigle junior Tax Inspector, Cedric Charlton (new member of LDS, Harry Wheeler) to ditch his stressful office job and embrace the freewheeling countryside way of life. Of course it is a much easier decision when he falls in love with the eldest Larkin girl, Mariette (Laura Heybrock), whose sultry flirting captures him as surely as a spider ensnares a fly.

Pop (Andy Longley-Brown) is a loveable rogue operating way under the radar of the tax man while Ma (another new member of LDS, Zara Cain) is the larger-than-life matriarch of the clan and definitely the wearer of the Larkin trousers. As head of the family there is great chemistry between the parents as they look after their brood.

The set by Jake Smart is both the family dining room and the garden gate leading to the wonders of the bluebell wood.

If you want to escape from the current less than summery weather you can do no better than escaping to the Larkin’s Garden of England at The Little Theatre until Saturday 6 July.

Pics: Dave Morris Photography

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