Interviews
The Larkins At Christmas | Interview with Bradley Walsh (Pop Larkins)
What does a Larkin Christmas look like?
It’s every family’s idea of the most wonderful time of the year.
A Larkin’s Christmas Day dinner is laden with every possible piece of food you can imagine, it’s not the sort of Christmas dinner you start cooking at 10 o’clock in the morning, it’s the kind Ma starts cooking three days prior to Christmas Day.
It’s goose, chicken, turkey, sparrow, pigeon, anything they can lay their hands on! That’s the way it is living off the farm.
Can you give us an overview of the events happening in the feature length Christmas special?
The primary thing that happens this year is that we have a power cut and because of that, all of a sudden, we start having burglaries occur. Everyone points the finger at a certain person but the moral of the story is that you should never judge a book by its cover.
We also have Edith Pilchester taking over the running of the village nativity and the Normans are not happy about it at all. All the kids have got a part in it and it’s an old-fashioned village nativity play.
Tell us a bit about Mariette returning?
Mariette left us to go live in France at the end of the first series.
Ma won’t ever suffer from empty nest syndrome because she’ll always have hundreds of people around her but the fact that Mariette, her first born went and has now come back means it’s so lovely for all the family to be together at Christmas.
Tell me a bit about the awkward situation that arises with Charley’s family?
The awkwardness that evolves with the Charltons is that they are really quite posh and the Larkins are not posh at all.
The Larkins never look up or look down at people, they are very respectful of everyone. There is no harm in The Larkins at all, all they want to do is help people.
In actual fact, families and marriages are a great leveler and Pop and Ma are brilliant at disarming everyone. I don’t think they’re doing it to get what they want, I think they are genuinely lovely people.
Tell us a bit about Pop’s Christmas Carol medley
I don’t purport to be a singer, I’ve managed to get away with it over the years. Does Pop sing? I guess he does. Do I sing? Sort of!
My favourite Christmas song is Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and Pop’s favourite Christmas song would probably be Come All Ye Faithful.