Description
The Larkins Family Album
7-DVD Box Set
7 discs. All six series. All 40 Episodes. Comedy Sitcom. Black & White. Years: 1958-1964.
Running time over 18 hours of content including the 1958 Christmas special.
Cast: Peggy Mount, David Kossoff, Shaun O’Riordan, Ruth Trouncer, Ronan O’Casey,
Barbara Mitchell, Hugh Paddick, George Roderick and Hilary Bamberger.
Guests include: Wilfrid Brambell, Shaw Taylor, Charles Lloyd-Pack, John Bluthal, Victor Maddern, Pete Murray and Ronan O’Casey.
Meet the Larkins: hen-pecked but crafty Alf and his domineering wife Ada, (played to perfection by BAFTA winner David Kossoff and TV battleaxe Peggy Mount); their aimless son Eddie, daughter Joyce, and ex-GI son-in-law Jeff. The family spends the first four series of this classic early sitcom in a state of less than domestic bliss at 66 Sycamore Street, East London. Later, Alf and Ada up sticks to run a cafe and B&B, with neighbour and general busybody Hetty Prout helping in the kitchen.
Based on creator Fred Robinson’s youthful plays about a fictional Cockney family, The Larkins features scripts that ATV production controller Bill Ward described as the funniest he had ever read, which inspired deep affection among viewers throughout its run between 1958 and 1964. This set comprises all 40 episodes, transferred from the original film telerecordings. The series opens with son Eddie’s demob party and follows his attempts to find employment. Meanwhile, Ada wants a television, but Alf is dead against it. Ada gets her own back, however, when Alf is accepted into a local drinking ‘society’! The family adventures continue with Alf and Ada dabbling in the world of advertising and complaining to the landlord about their property. Eddie attends night school and a family member wins a Pool dividend – but whose line was it? Ada invests in a vacuum cleaner on the never-never and tries matchmaking for the local vicar. Eventually, Ada and Alf set up their own café, which comes with a lodger who never seems to have funds for his rent. This leads to more trouble when they seek help in running it from their neighbour Hetty. The domestic situations the family find themselves in are the framework for humorous characterisations and situations, ably played by the brilliant cast with superb scripts written by Fred Robinson, based on people and stories he observed in his East London life.
