I never watched it. Not because I thought it was necessarily bad, but because I loved (and still love)Ā The Darling Buds of May.
Some programmes and films are so good that, in my opinion, they simply don't need remaking. Sometimes, you capture lightning in a bottle, and that's where it should stay.
Interestingly, some of my colleagues took againstĀ The LarkinsĀ for an entirely different reason.
They felt ITV was "airbrushing history" by portraying 1950s rural Kent as more diverse than it actually was.
Their argument was that Britain, and Kent in particular, simply wasn't like that back then.
But I've always wondered: was it really that deep?
I never sawĀ The Darling Buds of MayĀ as a documentary about post-war Britain. It was a fictional story about a fictional family, based on H.E. Bates' novels. Which I have read and really enjoy.
The Larkins weren't real people whose lives ITV had a duty to reproduce with historical precision.
They were characters in a light-hearted, escapist family drama.
So why should a reboot of that story be expected to function as a perfectly accurate social snapshot of 1950s Britain?
Don't get me wrong. I understand the argument about historical accuracy.
Britain's past wasn't as diverse as its present, and pretending otherwise in a programme specifically intended to depict historical reality would be misleading.
But is that whatĀ The LarkinsĀ was trying to do?
Or was it simply telling a fictional story, with a fictional family, for a modern television audience?
There's a difference.
My colleagues' response was along the lines of:
"We know it wasn't like that. Thankfully, we've moved on from those days, but let's not pretend they didn't happen."
And I understand that sentiment.
History matters. The struggles people faced matter. We shouldn't rewrite the past to make it more comfortable for us today.
But does casting a fictional character in a light-hearted period drama automatically amount to rewriting history?
I'm not convinced.
Surely context matters?
A historical documentary, a serious drama about racial discrimination in 1950s Britain, and a Sunday-night family comedy aren't doing the same job.
We should judge them accordingly.
IfĀ The LarkinsĀ had claimed to be an accurate representation of the demographics and social attitudes of rural Kent in the 1950s, that would be a different conversation.
But simply telling a fictional story with a diverse cast doesn't necessarily make that claim.
And here's another thing.
I wasn't particularly keen on the originalĀ Darling Buds of MayĀ changing Primrose's actress.
In the books, Primrose has a relationship with the vicar that eventually results in them having a daughter, which was the reason the actress was replaced. ITV didn't pursue that storyline in the same way, presumably because of the family-friendly direction of the adaptation.
Even then, the original series made its own choices about what to change and what to leave out.
Adaptations have always involved interpretation.
Which brings me back to my original point.
I didn't watchĀ The LarkinsĀ because I adored the original, and I didn't feel the need to revisit a story I thought had already been brought to the screen beautifully.
That's a perfectly reasonable reason (in my view) not to watch a reboot.
But I struggle with the idea that a fictional family drama must accurately reproduce every demographic reality of the period it depicts, particularly when its purpose is entertainment rather than historical instruction.
Are we in danger of expecting too much historical precision from fiction while forgetting that fiction has always involved creative choices?
A period setting doesn't automatically make a programme a historical record.
And a diverse cast doesn't automatically mean a programme is trying to convince its audience that Britain has always looked as it does today.
Sometimes, a drama is just a drama.
So, what do you think?
WasĀ The LarkinsĀ guilty of "airbrushing history", as some of my colleagues believed?
Or was it simply a modern adaptation of a much-loved fictional story, with no grand historical statement intended?
And, perhaps most importantly, can we acknowledge the realities of Britain's past without insisting that every fictional story set in that past must reflect them in precisely the same way?
Genuinely interested in hearing your thoughts
