Classic cockney comedy given a repeat run

Classic sitcom The Larkins is to be screened on British TV for the first time in more than 50 years.

The comedy ran for six series from 1958 to 1964, and starred Peggy Mount as Ada, the tough matriarch of a family in the East End of London. 

It is now being screened again by vintage channel Talking Pictures TV.

The definitive Radio Times Guide To TV Comedy says of the show: ‘Acclaimed at the time, with justification, as the funniest sitcom British TV had produced, The Larkins was a joyful celebration of a cockney lifestyle unchanged for decades and seemingly unaffected by the poverty of the area.'

David Kossoff played Ada’s henpecked husband, with the couple sharing their home –  66 Sycamore Street– with their clueless adult son Eddie (Shaun O’Riordan), daughter Joyce (Ruth Trouncer), and  her unsuccessful writer of a husband, Jeff (Ronan O’Casey).

In the final two series, Ada and Alf had an empty nest, having been forced out of  Sycamore Street following the East End slum clearances. They now ran a greasy spoon café and had a lodger, Major Osbert Rigby-Soames (retired), played by Round The Horne’s Hugh Paddick.

Unusually for a British sitcom of the era, all episodes still exist, and were previously released as a DVD by Network – although has not been repeated for decades

The Larkins is unrelated to the recent ITV series of the same name, adapted from H. E. Bates's The Darling Buds of May starring Bradley Walsh and Joanna Scanlan.

The series starts on Talking Pictures TV on Sunday March 26 at 2.30pm and continues weekly.

Published: 14 Mar 2023